Sumatra
Region: Lake Toba
Farm: Sriwijaya Coffee
(Excerpt from Sriwijaya’s Website) A couple of centuries ago, the Dutch introduced Arabica coffee to local farmers in one of their colonies, in the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies. One of the major regions in Dutch East Indies where the Arabica coffee was first planted is the west side of Lake Toba region in the Northern Sumatra. The Arabica coffee produced in this Lake Toba region has unique taste profile because of the combination of altitude, soil structure and climate. These days, a blend of the coffee from this region and from the other parts of the Sumatra Island is renowned as Sumatra Mandheling coffee.
Due to the popularity of this Sumatra Mandheling trademark name, many coffee collectors and exporters in Northern Sumatra mix Sumatra coffee from different regions in Sumatra and sometimes even outside of Sumatra and label the blended coffee as Sumatra Mandheling. This practice of blending makes it hard to find Sumatra Mandheling coffee with consistent taste profile.
A couple years ago, realizing this challenge of finding consistent good quality from Sumatra, as well as from Java, Sulawesi and other islands, we established our company in the United States with the initial goal of providing great and true Sumatra to roasters in the US. We picked our company name as Sriwijaya Coffee. Sriwijaya (or Srivijaya) comes from a powerful Buddhist ancient kingdom in Sumatra in the 13th century. In Sanskrit language, the word Sri means “shining”, and Wijaya means “excellence”. Excellence in green coffee quality that we supply to our client is what we strive to achieve and maintain.
Majority of our coffee offerings come from the Northern Sumatra region, where we have family ties with several coffee growers around the Lake Toba villages. We ensure that our coffees are processed properly and consistently from harvesting until they are shipped to our warehouses. We are confident that we provide value added services to our customers by providing this control on the quality of our coffees that we supply. We DO NOT blend our Sumatra coffee with different district ones and not to mention with non-Sumatra. Our coffees are the true Single Origin uniquely presented from certain villages in the Sumatra Island.
Cupping Notes: Black Walnut, Baking Cocoa & Tobacco
Basic Roast Level: Medium-Dark