This washing station and farm belonging to Hendra and his family is an island of specialty experimental processed coffee in a sea of conventional wet hulled coffee the area is typically known for. Hendras father, Hamdan moved to the area in 2006 from Banda Aceh and then bought some land in the sub district of Pegasing to start growing coffee. This move initiated a spark in his son Hendra who then started to work with his father in 2010 and soon began to start experimenting with washed coffees after researching old literature and seeking help from others in Indonesia who were moving away from the wet hulled processing and really highlighting the characteristics such coffees can have.
From this Hendra and the family have invested heavily in the farm but more specifically the post harvesting facilities where with some help of funding they have built a small wet will with two pulpers, gravitational washing channels and several raised beds in large poly tunnels for drying the coffee. Hendra has continued to experiment and now has around 8 - 10 different processes that he produces. The small washing station will produce up to 40 tons of green coffee every year. The coffee is purchased from 70 farmers around the area who want to work with Hendra and pick ripe cherry as he has incentivised them to do this by rewarding good picking. If any farmers have travelled further to get to Hendras farm then they are paid extra for this as well. Hendra has also started a nursery where he is helping to grow the Abyssinia varietal that has was planted when coffee first came to Indonesia. He is working with local farmers to plant small plots on their land where he pays more for this varietal due to the reduced yield and higher cup quality.
Hendra will decide the process depending on the weather and the demand from client as he sells a lot of his coffee to Specialty roasters based in Indonesia and predominantly Jakarta.
Carbonic Maceration
The coffee that is selected comes from the best farmers around Hendra who pick excellent ripe cherry and are based at the highest altitude. For such good selection Hendra pays them a premium.
The cherries are put into plastic fermentation tanks, and CO2 is inserted to push out all of the oxygen. The cherries are fermented for 70 - 80 hours.
The coffee is then placed on raised beds and dried for 20 - 25 days on raised beds with regular turning in a drying tent where the temperature is monitored.
Before being placed into bags the coffee is then put through a density table twice to help remove immature beans and then goes through two rounds of hand picking to make sure it is clean and of specialty standard.
