Wild Horse

Kongo Coffee

Kongo Coffee are a locally owned, independent coffee exporter based in Simbu Province, founded and managed by Jerry Kapka a former local school teacher. Established in 1990, Kongo buy parchment exclusively from smallholders within the Simbu Province and work closely with producing communities to help elevate quality. Simbu is Papua New Guinea’s third largest coffee producing province. Kongo have been in operation since before the turn of the millennium and provides services to the smallholder coffee producers.

Over the years Kongo have been supporting several schools across the Simbu province. This includes funding for building development, resources, and school fee scholarships. In 2012, an Elementary school was officially named “Jerry Kapka Elementary School” is honour of our company’s support for schools and education in the community.

Other projects included bringing television broadcast to their villages and paying to install one complete system in a village in remote Gumine, south Simbu. Actively supporting activities involving food production and planting within communities is also important. Most commonly, these are crops including oranges and rice and potato trainings and production.


Hatehei

Hatuhei is located in one of the most remote parts of the highlands that is completely cut off during the rainy meaning opportunities to generate an income are very few out side of the coffee harvest. As Hatuhei’s coffee reputation grows they have been able to invite more coffee farmers to join the co-operative and share in the increased income that processing speciality coffee can bring.

Carlos de Deus is the lead farmer and works closely with Karst Organics to ensure all of the smallholder farmers from Hatuhei co-operative members receive weekly support during the harvest. The focus is to ensure that as the coffee gains in popularity and volumes increase, quality is never compromised.

With time old traditions in growing coffee passed on from generation to generation, and investment, education and support processing from Karst Organics, coffee is gradually helping to build more opportunities for Timorese people to create a consistent and sustainable income.

Kongo Coffee

Until 1932, the highland regions of Papua New Guinea were assumed uninhabited. Today, it is widely accepted that over a million people were living there since the early 1900s, completely isolated from the outside world. The coffee grown here is from the wild coffee forests, naturally shade grown amongst mostly avocados and bananas and of course organic.



Hatuhei

Situated in south east Asia, approximately 1000 miles east of Bali, Timor-Leste is a lush tropical island. Coffee was first introduced to the island in the 1900’s but the industry has suffered neglect during a difficult political period in the late 90’s. Timorese farmers are now working hard to establish a place in the world speciality coffee market to generate a consistent and sustainable income.

One of the most special features about East-Timorese coffee is that it is all wild and organically grown underneath the Ai-Kakeu (Casuarina) and Ai-Samtuku (Albizia) shade trees that dominate the mountainous coffee growing regions. Only natural fertiliser is used (consisting of chicken poo, cherry skin and soil) to nourish the soil. Due to the country’s lack of development and strong animist beliefs, chemical fertilisers have yet to be introduced into agricultural practices. Karst organics are currently running a shade three replanting programme, with a shade tree planted for every 10kg of green coffee sold.

Kongo Coffee

Historically, coffee quality from Simbu was considered low grade. Harsh terrain, poor road access, and a lack of coffee education meant poor cup scores. Smallholders had limited access to the market and were price takers rather than price controllers.

When Jerry opened his warehouse in the 90s, his promise to the people of Simbu was a simple one. He would work with them to improve quality, and in turn, guarantee them a higher price for their coffee. Improvements have come through the installation of raised drying beds, moisture monitoring, the distribution of pulpers and education on cherry picking at optimal ripeness. Smallholder parchment is collected through a network of buying stations in Huave, Kundiawa and trusted buying partners in more rural areas. The drastically improved quality allows Kongo to pay a minimum of 20% above market rate for all the parchment they purchase, with a further 60% available in quality premiums. As a result, producers want to sell coffee to Kongo Coffee and continue to invest in quality to achieve higher prices.

All coffee that Kongo purchase ends up at their dry mill in Huave. Given they only buy parchment, 100% of the coffee exported is washed. On the cupping table, all coffees presented a cocoa sweetness and orange citrus acidity. Elimbari had a more complex acidity with lots of stone fruit. Simbu PSC were more sweetness forwards, with a thick, caramel body.



Hatuhei

Each farmer will begin by selectively handpicking only the ripest red cherries from their plantations, which are then pulped and fermented for 40-44 hours, fully washed and then dried using the African Bed Drying method. We find Timor –Leste coffee generally full bodied and earthy but this careful fermentation and washing brings a wonderful apple acidity.