SUMATRA ORGANIC TAKENGON ATU LINTANG IKA MANDHELING GRADE 1

This is a very bold coffee. Hints of grapefruit, brown spice, oak, and herbaceous.

Certified Organic from USDA and MCIA.

The KKGO cooperative has farmers throughout the highlands surrounding Sumatra’s Lake Tawar. We often get high-grade coffees from this group, often hailing from specific sub-regions and communities. This is a lighter and brighter delivery than most, from the Atu Lintang area, a small area southwest of the lake and part of the vast Aceh Tengah Regency.

Welcome to Aceh 
Aceh (pronounced AH-CHEY) is the northernmost province of Sumatra. Its highland territory, surrounding Lake Tawar and the central city of Takengon, is considered to be the epicenter of one of the world’s most unique coffee terroirs. Coffee farms in this area are managed with the experience of many generations of cultivation, while also harmoniously woven into their surrounding tropical forests. The canopies are loud and fields are almost impenetrably thick with coffee plants, fruit trees, and vegetables, all of which are constantly flushing with new growth. Year-round mists and rain showers never cease, farm floors are spongy and deep with layered biomass, and almost every square meter of the region seems to exude life. Nothing is ever still. Including coffee ripening, which occurs ten months out of the year.  

KKGO and the Gayo Identity 
Koperasi Kopi Gayo Organic (KKGO) is a cooperative of 1,358 farmers. Members average 1 hectare each and are spread across the hillsides of the Bener Meriah and Aceh Tengah Regencies, which together circle the immediate highland ranges north and south of Lake Tawar. The cooperative, along with many local industries in the region, identifies itself as “Gayo”, after the Gayonese ethnic group which has long made Aceh their home, and which comprises a vast majority of farmer members. KKGO was founded in 2006 and currently mills and exports through nearby PT Ihtiyeri Keti Ara, a family-owned company with whom Royal has worked for the past 20 years.

Regional coffee distinctions in the northern provinces of Sumatra are interestingly all based on human ethnicity, rather than geography itself. “Mandheling” for example, is a broad label for a widespread cultural group in Sumatra and Malaysia and subsequently the broadest coffee trading term, applying to almost any chosen blend of wet-hulled coffees from across the northern half of the island. “Batak” is a Mandheling sub-ethnicity based around Lake Toba and considered a regional coffee pedigree unto itself, and often marketed as such. These terms are malleable, and it is often difficult to pinpoint a coffee’s exact origin without direct partnerships that allow buyers to trace the entire value chain themselves. “Gayo” is another such sub-ethnicity, which continues to have a very strong identity locally in Aceh, often appearing on exports, restaurants, and clothing stores in the region that cater to Gayonese traditional designs.