SULAWESI ORGANIC TORAJA BOLOKAN NATURAL

When the Dutch first brought coffee to Indonesia it was cultivated on large estates that would later become government owned after independence. The Rantekarua Estate, located in the Bittuang district of Tana Toraja Regency, South Sulawesi province on the island of Sulawesi, remained mostly abandoned until the government gave cultivation rights to PT Sulotco Jaya Abadi in 1987. Since that time the 3000-acre estate has undergone substantial renovation and become a beacon of innovation particularly in matters of land conservation. More than 500 acres have been converted into natural forest and coffee cultivation is managed with organic inputs. Manure from more than 2000 sheep grazing on the estate is used as a major source of organic fertilizer. During the harvest, cherries are picked and transported to the Sulotco processing facility in the Bolokan valley. At the processing facility, cherries are soaked for 24 hours and less dense and damaged coffee (floaters) are removed. Then the remaining cherries are moved to raised beds and dried to 11 percent moisture over a period of at least 2 weeks. The dried cherries are stored until it is time to mill and export the coffee, which is also done at the same processing facility and includes hand-sorting as the final step. The integrated process from the estate to export provides a tremendous advantage in managing quality and traceability.