TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - On its official website, KEURIG offers ready-to-brew coffee at US$3.99 per five coffee pods packaged in a box resembling a box of tea bags. Each pod is meant for making one cup of coffee.
Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., based in Vermont, USA, sells the ‘Sumatra Reserve Coffee’ coffee pods under the brand Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. The dark roast variant is caffeinated and has a thick, complex flavor.
Chief of Permata Gayo Cooperative, Djumhur Abubakar, is certainly familiar with the Sumatra Reserve, as the coffee’s beans come from the farmers joined under his cooperative. "Our cooperative exports up to 1,400 tons of coffee annually," said Djumhur, with destinations such as the US, Europe and Australia.
Read: Coffee From Crop To Cup
The cooperative only exports green beans, which are roasted, processed and labeled only upon their reaching overseas buyers, among others Green Mountain Coffee. Djumhur is able to trace his coffee because his cooperative pocketed a fair trade certificate in 2006.
Fair trade was initiated in the Netherlands in 1988, under the label Max Havelaar-the protagonist and title of Multatuli alias Eduard Douwes Dekker’s novel. The initiative offers coffee producers the opportunity to follow certain social and environmental standards.
A fair trade label gives consumers certainty that a product truly benefits farmers, even at the end of the supply chain. Usually, final producers such as Keurig will mention the origins of their coffee beans, including the names of farmers or cooperatives. Like Kuerig, Esperanza, a Spanish coffee roaster that also sells beans from Permata Gayo Cooperative, gives their coffee the ‘Sumatra’ label.
Read: Third Wave Cafes
Indonesian coffee has received worldwide attention due to its unique flavor. At the Specialty Coffee Association of America Expo in Atlanta, USA, in 2015, for example, six coffee varieties from West Java were ranked in the top 20 in a cupping test, with four among the top 10. Gunung Puntang, pioneered by Ayi Sutedja, took first place, while Malabar Honey owned by Slamet Prayogo took second place.
Read the full article in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine
