East Timor Eratoi
From: £8.25
Our first ever Timorese coffee, organically grown with an amazingly complex, sweet and delicate character. Notes of orange, muscovado sugar and lychee.
Our friends at ‘Batch’ have reviewed this coffee here:
https://www.batchcoffee.co.uk/coffeereviews/glen-lyon
Producer Group: Eratoi Cooperative (15 farmers)
Lead Farmer: Simao Pedro de Deus
Altitude: 1800 metres above sea level
Varietal: Typica, Timor Hybrid
Process: Fully washed and sun dried on African beds
Region: Letefoho, East Timor
Situated in South East Asia with Australia to the South, Timor-Leste holds the unenviable accolade of being one of the few countries in the world to have been both colonised and annexed; colonised by Portugal from 1600s to 1975 and annexed by Indonesia from 1975 to 1999. Having finally gained independence in 2001, Timor-Leste is the world’s second youngest nation state and still finding its feet in the geo-political world of the 21st century. Coffee was introduced to the island by the Portuguese and went on to become the country’s leading export by the 1900s, however the industry suffered greatly during the years of Indonesian annexation when the sector was largely ignored.
Fast forward to the present day and you will see that the coffee farmers of Timor-Leste are working hard to collectively carve out a place for Timorese coffee in the global speciality coffee market.
Timorese coffee is truly wild and organically grown underneath the imposing shade trees that dominate the landscape. With time old traditions in processing coffee, passed on from generation to generation, coffee is helping to build up more opportunities for Timorese people to create a consistent and sustainable income from which to support and provide for their families and the local community.
The village of Eratoi is located at an altitude of 1800masl, an ideal height at which to cultivate and process coffee. Led by Simao Pedro de Deus, these 15 smallholder farmers have extensive experience in quality coffee processing and have consistently produced some of the finest quality speciality coffee in East Timor during the last few years.
2020 will be the second year in which our import partners Karst Organics has collaborated with the Eratoi cooperative; an experienced group of 15 smallholder farmers, with over 10 years of collective knowledge around high quality processing of speciality grade coffee beans.
Working with the Eratoi farmers, the foundations for a lasting partnership have been established between not only Karst Organics and Eratoi, but also with the Rotutu cooperative. Opportunities between these two groups to share knowledge, experience and support are regularly encouraged, ensuring that there is no disparity in the quality of their coffee between the two different purchasing models, as ultimately coffee quality is always at the core of their work.
