Sumatra Wahana Rasuna Natural, Indonesia
Farrer’s not only have a long coffee heritage, but their small, dedicated team have the drive and vision to bring you the very best ethically and sustainably sourced coffees from around the globe.
Farrer’s is introducing Sumatra Wahana Rasuna Natural, a new and intoxicating coffee from Wahana Estate, the first single varietal and speciality estate in Sumatra.
First established in 2005 the estate now covers 468 hectares, and is home to between 800 to 1000 workers, a farmers’ support centre has been established which distributes coffee seeds, shade trees and offers information and advice on farm management including the use of organic fertilizers.
Workers and their families have access to an on-site health clinic, free housing, electricity, drinking water, healthcare and a nursery and kindergarten for young children. They’ve also built a church and mosque on the grounds for workers’ use and have been instrumental in purchasing computers for local schools.
(Image by @delightindee on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/gc568a1uGr8)
Over half of the estate’s 468 hectares are currently planted with coffee trees. Another 30 hectares of the estate are a dedicated nursery for the local varieties grown on the estate. New seedlings are nurtured in sandy beds. After three months, the young plants are moved to polybags for seven to eight months and then planted in plots and labelled to identify varieties.
A significant swathe of the estate is conservation land that protects native species and builds buffer zones around tributaries, to minimize runoff into local waterways. Coffees trees are spaced, and shade grown under local River Tamarind. In addition to the estate’s focus on production methods, its geographic location contributes to its high-quality coffees.
The Republic of Indonesia is a country of seventeen thousand islands, reaching across the Indian and Pacific oceans and forming part of the Ring of Fire. Unsurprisingly, it is the world’s largest island country, though with only the second largest coastline. Forming part of the Sunda Islands is Sumatra, part of an archipelago stretching across Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor, and Indonesia.
In the northern part of Sumatra is Lake Toba, formed in the caldera of a super volcano, caused by the largest-known explosive volcanic eruption in the last 25 million years, which caused a 4°C drop in global temperatures that lasted for around three years around 74,000 years ago. But this is far from being an inactive volcanic lake, some parts of the caldera have shown uplift due to partial refilling of the magma chamber underneath, creating new islands including Samosir and the Uluan Peninsula.
The lake itself is 62 mils long and 19 miles wide, and as such is the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in the world. In 2020 the area became a UNESCO Geopark, in other words an area whose landscape is of international geological significance and because of this are managed with holistically to ensure they are looked after sustainably and that those who interact with the landscape are educated as to the uniqueness of it.
(Image by @milalawisata on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/SfYWS5iIXDg)
Wahana Estate established in 2005, is located to the west of Lake Toba, in the Sidikalang sub-district, Dairi, in North Sumatra, which produces some of the world’s most high prized coffees.
The majority of the plantation’s production is washed coffee and they have made significant investment in that area. However, this particular coffee is dry processed and is entirely of the Rasuna variety, a hybrid of Catimor and Typica that originated in Sumatra. This new varietal is being planted in Takengon area on 90 hectares of Wahana land. This varietal is grown on the Wahana Estate between 1300 and 1500 meters and all under shade so trees can grow more slowly and naturally.
Indonesia has a long history of coffee production which started in 1699, when Dutch traders and colonists brought plants to the Indonesian islands from Yemen, the climatic and soil conditions were ideal, and the crop flourished rapidly propelling the region to the top of the charts in terms of global coffee production with the first exports to Europe in 1711 by the Dutch East India Company.
Trade took off too and Indonesia became the most important coffee producing region in the world until Brazil surpassed it in the middle of the 19th century. By the mid-1870s the Dutch East India Company expanded the number of Arabica coffee-growing areas to include Sumatra, Bali, Sulawesi and Timor.
Disaster struck in the late 19th century in the shape of coffee rust disease, which meant they were forced to introduce disease resistant Robusta varieties which where the most predominant coffee plants available by 1915 and by 1920 in the case of Sumatra.
Sumatra Wahana Rasuna Natural is a complex coffee, with fruity, exotic and earthy with notes of candied watermelon and strawberry and earthy spice.
Farm: Wahana Estate
Country: Indonesia
Region: Sidikalang, Northern Sumatra
Varietal: Rasuna
Process: Natural
Profile: Notes of caramel, red berries and strawberry
Cup Score: 87.75