Sumatra Anaerobic Washed Bebesen Aulia

This is an anaerobic wet-process ("washed") coffee, meaning the coffee cherry was stored in sealed barrels for 2-3 days before being processed down to the seed and dried. The anaerobic process method tends to be associated with wild fruit flavors, but that's not what we find in Aulia's coffee. Instead, it delivers more on the bittersweet, hefty chocolate tones and body than anything else. Pak Aulia is both a coffee farmer and "collector", meaning he works as a sort of middle man who buys whole cherry and wet parchment from farmers in the surrounding regions (typically Bebesen and Kute Panang, near his home). Aulia manages some of his own processing at the small mill he's set up at his home. With small scale comes the capability for a high level of quality management, which he puts into all of the different process techniques he employs (including wet process and wet hulled, honey and dry process too). He also processes some of his coffee at a new mill nearby who have modern machinery to process coffee well, and plenty of space to store it. The coffee is then moved to a dry mill in Tekengon, where it undergoes intensive hand sorting to clean up to Grade 1 standards. That extra care and attention given to quality control is apparent when you look at the green coffee, and of course in flavor too, though not without defects.