Sumatra Wet Hulled Kerinci Pendekar

This coffee comes from a coffee farmer's cooperative in the Gunung Tujuh area, a higher elevation coffee zone around Mount Kerinci. We're calling it "Pendekar" - which translates to "warrior" - as it's a term of endearment members use for each other when someone does a really good job with a coffee (like improving their processing equipment, planting more coffee, building a greenhouse, etc.). The coop serves about 450 farmers in the area who are divided into 24 farmer groups, 4 of which are specifically women's farmer groups. Many of the farms in this area are planted in older Typica types and benefit from the high slopes, situated between 1400 - 1500 meters above sea level. This is a wet hulled coffee, also known as "giling basah". This is the typical process method in Sumatra and involves removing the parchment layer while the coffee is still wet, exposing it to the elements well before the coffee is stable. When handled well during the drying phase (like this coffee), this rustic process method yields an earth-toned, bodied cup, with mild acidity and syrupy sweetness, and the green bean taking on a dark green hue unlike wet or dry process coffees from other producing countries. Having roasted this coffee, I'm very pleased with the uniformity of roast color and the minimal quakers from underripe coffee making it through. Giling basah - and Sumatran coffee in general - has a reputation for being riddled with defects even at "Grade 1" standard. Our "Appearance" category score is a little on the high side as a sort of worse case scenario, even though the green I inspected looked much cleaner than this. I saw minimal broca damage for Sumatra, a few unripe beans, and some broken beans. It's no Grade 1 Ethiopian coffee, but far better than your average Grade 1 Sumatra.