Parchment is sun-dried for between half a day and two days, depending on the weather, to allow for skin drying which eases the removal of parchment.Īt this juncture the moisture content is between 30-40%. Following harvest, cherry is pulped at or near the farm, on small hand-cranked or motorized pulpers. Some farmers in Gayo sell their cherry to a local collector who either processed the cherry themselves or sells it to a processor or wet mill. The coffee is fermented for approximately 12 hours (in small tanks, buckets or bags) and washed with clean water the following morning. After handpicking cherry, farmers process their cherry using the traditional wet hulling (giling basah) method. This is mostly because the relative humidity in the air is too high to actually dry the beans enough before hulling them.

There are more and more initiatives by farmers on Sumatra to organize themselves into cooperatives. In the past, farmers did not have much leverage to help themselves get better prices for their cherry or parchment. When they’re in cooperatives, they can share resources, organize training and negotiate better prices.Ĭoffee from Sumatra is known for one very specific feature: the wet-hulled process or gilling basah. When the harvest is finished, coffee farmers will go there and pick leaves under contracted labor. The bigger tea plantations are often near coffee farms. In addition to growing coffee as a cash crop, many smallholder farmers also work at hired laborers at the nearby tea plantations. Due to this, pruned coffee trees tend to grow outwards more than upwards, leading to a unique umbrella shaped tree.Īlmost all farms in Gayo Highlands are small. Producers in Gayo Highlands are known for their unique pruning method.

Coffee is shade grown, frequently using lamtoro, or river tamarind, trees.

Gayo sumatra