Timor-Leste – Eratoi Village

Region:  Ducurai sub-district, Letefoho Administrative Post, Ermera Municipality, Timor-Leste

Producer: Eratoi Village

Farm: 15 Smallholder families in Eratoi organized around Café Brisa Serena

Altitude: 1649 MASL

Varietal: Timor Hybrid & Typica

Process: Fully washed after pulping and fermenting, dried on raised beds, greenhouse conditioned

Notes:  Green Apple, Vanilla, Brown sugar, White Grape, Rose and Violet floral notes

100% Arabica

Elegant and clean, with distinct rose and violet floral overtones which are matched in kind by gentle stone fruit flavors like apricot and nectarine—a very nice example of some of the best coffee produced on this tiny island nation.

The island of Timor rests just a couple hundred miles northwest of Australia, and is split between the sovereignty of the nation of Indonesia on the west and, since 2002, the independent Timor-Leste on the east. Modern Timor-Leste was until very recently the world’s most coffee dependent nation. Green coffee export accounted for nearly 70% of the nation’s GDP as recently as 2006. However, after cancelling a controversial agreement with Australia, Timor-Leste now retains a significantly higher proportion of its petroleum revenue, making that the country’s leading export product. East Timor is now the world’s most oil-dependent nation.

This coffee comes to us from Café Brisa Serena, a social enterprise established by Peace Winds Japan (PWJ) in 2003. PWJ came to Timor in 1999 in the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe, generations in the making. After Portuguese and Japanese occupation, the nation of Indonesia claimed the island from 1975 onwards, stoking guerrilla warfare and a major refugee crisis. By 1999, international support for Timor-Leste’s independence won out, and aid came flowing to the island’s beleaguered residents.

Café Brisa Serena now works with over 400 farming households, primarily in and around Letefoho, the administrative outpost in the municipal district of Ermera, near the center of the island. They provide agronomic support and quality service, a greenhouse for parchment conditioning, access to international markets, and even a roastery to improve the local coffee consumption culture as well.

This microlot is sourced from a community of 15 smallholder farmers in the Eratoi village, each of whom grow coffee on less than 1 hectare of land. Their names are Abel de Oliveira Pinto, Abrao de Deus, Eduardo L. Pereira, Joao da Costa Soares, David Soares, Domingos de Deus II, Miguel Lemos, Adolfo de Deus, Jose Mariano de Jesus, Agusto de Deus, Joao Felisberto de Deus, Manuel de Deus, Agostinho de Deus, Orlando de Deus, and Miguel da Graca.

Text and Photos Courtesy of Royal Coffee