Avenue Coffee - Jagong Village (Sumatra)

Jagong Village was established during the 1980’s as a result of the Indonesian transmigration program, when Javanese people were offered land and a new start in Sumatra in an attempt to reduce the population on the overcrowded island of Java. Working alongside their new Gayonese neighbours the settlers started to produce Arabica coffee.

The village is located in the Central Aceh District south of Aceh’s capital Takengon and around 35 kilometres from Lake Tawar; there are 25 members of the Jagong Village cooperative who grow organic bourbon and P88 arabica alongside cabbages, chillies and red beans on land that averages around one hectare in size. An altitude of around 1600 metres above sea level and rich and fertile soils bring about coffees that are unrivalled in their depth of body and often have fascinating complexity – possibly due to the way that the beans are processed.

The coffee is semi-washed and wet-hulled, a process that involves the part-drying of freshly pulped beans before removing the parchment then allowing the swollen and ‘blanched’ beans to be sun dried to a deep green colour.