Ermera Lacau - Timor Leste

Whole Bean
Size: 12oz / 340g
Roast: Medium
Recommended Rest: 2-3 weeks from roast date
Tasting Notes: pear tart, milk chocolate, brown sugar

Origin Details

Region: Ducurai village, Ermera, Timor Leste
Producer: 14 Smallholder farmers from the Lacau group of the Ducurai village organized around Café Brisa Serena, a social enterprise and exporter
Process: Washed
Elevation: 1300-1500 masl
Variety: Timor Hybrid, Typica

ABOUT THIS COFFEE AND PRODUCER

Timor-Leste’s coffee is small in overall scale but highly significant to the Timorese, 25% of whom rely on coffee production for their livelihood. The island’s inland forests also happen to be historically significant, being the origin of coffee’s most adaptive genetic cross—the Timor Hybrid—a natural breeding of local robusta and typica trees that was identified in the 1920s, and whose vigorous genetics can be found in countless timor-based cultivars in almost every producing country today. The island’s isolation has also allowed for a unique preservation of endemic typica variety coffees, whose purity and diversity resembles that of nearby Papua New Guinea, and expresses similarly in the cup.

Café Brisa Serena works with over 400 farmers in the Letefoho area. The organization was formed in close collaboration with Peace Winds Japan, a Japanese NGO that had been working in Timor-Leste’s coffee lands during the first decade after independence, when violence and crumbled infrastructure had disenfranchised many remote coffee communities. CBS continued the development work of Peace Winds, and in 2015 began a formalized specialty export chain.

This coffee is produced by 14 select farmers from the Ducurai village. Cherries are handpicked, processed, and then fermented using personal or shared equipment. The coffee is then dried on raised beds and sorted according to quality standards implemented by Café Brisa Serena.

Source: Royal Coffee

WHY WE SELECTED THIS COFFEE

We loved sourcing from Ducurai village last year and eagerly awaited this year's harvest. Timor is still a largely unknown coffee region despite producing high quality sweet coffees consistently every year on par with any of the more famous coffee producing regions. This year's harvest was just as good with excellent clean cocoa notes and rounded pear sweetness that works great for a comforting black cup of coffee or with milk. We especially love how approachable it is and hope you enjoy it too!