TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - It is safe to say that Coffee and Koteka are the names of two familiar items for Indonesians, the former being a beverage while the latter is a native Papuan traditional gourd to cover men`s private part.
But what if both items were mixed together and offered in the form of a cup of coffee?
At the Alenia Papua Coffee and Kitchen in Kemang, South Jakarta yesterday, May 3, I had the chance to taste the Arabica Papua coffee prepped with the V60 method. As soon as the water had completely dripped from the V60 dripper, I took the equipment aside and inhaled the coffee’s aroma that had a strong thick acidity sensation in the base of my nose.
Coffee experts would describe this type of coffee bean as the one with a high level of acidity, which basically is the character of Papuan coffee: bold starting from its aroma.
“The coffee’s acidity is close to the taste of a berry, orange, and peach. The higher the acidity, the better it scores,” said Hideo Gunawan, a coffee roaster from Curious People Coffee who is one of my sources in telling the tales of the Arabica Papua, especially the ones that originate from Oksibil, Bintang Mountains, Papua.
Read: Coffee: From Crop To Cup
This coffee bean from the Bintang Mountains is named the Koteka Coffee, which may seem unique at first since it was packaged in a container that was made to resemble a genuine koteka. According to Oksibil Regent Costan Oktemka, who accompanied Hideo, the Koteka Coffee is genuinely produced by Bintang Mountains residents.
“We want to introduce Oksibil’s tourism through coffee,” said Costan Oktemka.
This Arabica coffee bean is grown on the altitudes over 1,900 meters above sea-level and will have a more refined taste the higher the beans are grown. This is what makes the Koteka Coffee stand out from other Indonesian coffee beans that are generally grown on lands that are 1,500 meters above sea-level. These beans are grown in five Oksibil districts from at least 1,000 trees that produce roughly 600 kilograms of coffee beans annually.
At that height, the cold temperatures are mostly at the 18-23 degrees Celsius, which perfectly matures the beans. “This temperature is ideal to grow coffee beans,” said Hideo. The longer maturing process it goes through, the more nutrients the bean garners that creates the sour acidity taste and it is widely considered to differ greater quality beans to the ones that are not.
Despite being distributed up to Jayapura, Koteka Coffee is claimed to be renowned internationally since it was once heavily promoted to Europe and Australia in 2016 through the help of 20 cooperatives assisted by the government.
The coffee is still processed manually by hand but local residents have grown the instinct to treat the coffee beans as the beans rightly deserve, such as the right time to harvest the bean that is said to be first introduced to the region back in 1970 by Dutch missionaries.
Francisca Christy Rosana
