Have you ever seen a Komodo Dragon, the national animal of Indonesia, whip his tail at an adversary? The bold and strong flavours of this new Robusta combined with the extra caffeine boost that can hit you like a Komodo Lizard whipping his tail at you, inspired the name for this Indonesian beauty.
 
What is Robusta you ask? Technically Robusta is a variety of Coffea Canephora, a coffee species that is different from the more widely known Coffea Arabica. Because Robusta is the best known variety of Coffea Canephora, both are used interchangeably. Kinda like when you call a tissue you wipe your nose with a Kleenex even though it might actually be from a different brand. More interestingly, what distinguishes ‘Robusta’ coffee from Arabica coffee is its more chocolatey and grounded flavour profile, combined with a big bold body and a much higher caffeine content - it usually contains up to twice as much caffeine as Arabica coffee. Most of the world’s Robusta supply is of poor quality and therefore used for instant coffee. Thus Robusta has earned a bad reputation in the past. Luckily a lot has changed in the last few years and more and more Robusta producers are investing in improving their quality in order to fetch much better prices and actually make a living from growing their Robusta coffee. In our product range, Robusta sits where usually a darker roast would sit because the flavour profile of the Fine Robustas we source lends itself to this kind of coffee experience. Yet, we never go darker than a medium roast in order to really bring out the best in each of the coffees we bring to you. This latest addition to our Robusta club comes to us from the Indonesian island of Java. 
 
Social Kontext
 
Cahyo Pertama, whose name literally translates to ‘first light’ is a young entrepreneur from Candiroto village in the Temanggung district of Java. Coffee has been part of his family and although his parents have been spice traders for all of their lives, Cahyo started to see the potential of high quality Robusta coffee, traditionally grown in his area and the economic benefit it could bring to Candiroto if he could find the right partners. Especially for the young people in his area, growing coffee hasn’t been the most attractive choice but finding jobs that could pay the bills was getting more and more difficult and so some of the younger members of the community came together to discuss Cahyo’s proposal to see how they could help themselves find stable alternatives. 
 
Economic Kontext
 
Most of these young people come from families who had grown coffee in the past and present and it was evident, demand for higher quality coffee seemed to go up. Cahyo managed to convince 20 of them and together they founded ‘First Light Coffee’ to take their future in their own hands. Income from coffee allows them to to improve their ‘image’ in society, it is profitable and doing it together enables access to knowledge and resources. First Light Coffee has partnered with Ontosoroh, the Indonesian exporting partners of This Side Up coffee who are our main green coffee supplier based in the Netherlands.
 
Environmental Kontext
 
Coffee in Candiroto is grown under a mixed forest canopy with lots of shade and diversity. The group’s focus lies on improving productivity, creating stricter quality protocols, working on processing innovation, soil testing and creating their own organic fertilizers for the community in bulk, traceability and of course, finding new buyers.
For this specific lot the ripest of the red cherries are picked, submersed in water and then pulped. For the Tugusari variety, cherries are dry fermented in an anaerob tank (under the exclusion of oxygen) for 5 days, while the BP variety is submerged in water in an anerobe tank for 5 days to gain some body and preserve the sweetness. After that the coffee is dried in the open on raised beds for 15 days and consequently left to rest for 1 month, after which it is hulled and sorted to export grade.