10/16/2008

Splendid Isolation

 Papua New Guinea Purosa Fair Trade Organic

From the shores of Sulawesi to the shores of Papua New Guinea (PNG); the journey is not long as the crow flies. In fact, the island of New Guinea is shared by Indonesia in the west and Papua in the east. Although there are certain similarities, the two countries and the two coffees could hardly be more different. PNG until recently had been known more for cannibals than coffee. The remoteness of the growing areas of PNG is startling in this modern era. Fully one third of remaining world languages are spoken by the tribes of PNG. When the language is coffee, there is no need for a translator. The coffee grows in rich, volcanic soils in mountains 4,000 to 8,000 feet high and is drenched by nearly 100 to 180 inches of rain per year. With so much rainfall, the roads are impassable a majority of the time. Thus, the coffee is either carried out in a basket on someone’s head, or if the village is lucky enough to have a grass landing strip, picked up and flown out by plane.

It doesn’t take a flight of fancy to figure out that the splendid isolation of the coffee growing area contributes to its unique characteristics. Most farms are seriously small and the coffees are organically grown and processed in the village. Each village’s coffee has a particular taste due to its soil composition like the estate wines of Burgundy. Our coffee is also dry and full of fruit flavors like a good Burgundy. The aroma is floral, caramelly with a note of dry chocolate. It has a rich, sweet acidity. The body is creamy and full with floral and fruity flavors, perhaps a hint of grapefruit. It is a complex, balanced cup with a long clean finish and a chocolate-toned aftertaste. We roast this coffee to a dark full-city roast.

While we don’t recommend that you become a coffee cannibal by frequenting the multinational coffee houses, which are eating alive independent coffee houses, we do encourage you to drink a cup of locally roasted PNG coffee in splendid isolation.

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