Our featured coffee for November is a wild and juicy wet-hulled coffee from the Kintamani highlands of Bali. Interestingly, this coffee has a medium body, which is lighter than the typical rich, heavy body that we would expect from an Indonesian coffee. The start of the cup is sweet, light, and juicy with soft fruit notes of pomegranate. In the middle, the flavors quickly change, with the bitterness of pomegranate popping along with bold notes of dark chocolate. The finish is slightly dry and a little smoky, with sweet chocolate and bitter red grape skin notes combining for a quick, complex finish. 

Roast Color: Medium-Dark

Cupping Notes: Pomegranate, Dark Chocolate, Red Grape 

About the coffee of the month: We feature a new coffee every month. This allows us to explore more of the world of coffee outside of our normal offerings. It is available this month only, while supplies last. 

Story: Bali Blue Moon is named after the hallmark bluish hue of the bean produced from the wet-hulling process called Giling Basah in the Indonesian language. The bulk of Bali’s coffee production comes from small family-owned farms where each producer uses a few acres to cultivate coffee along with citrus trees in the volcanic soils of Mount Agung’s Kintamani highlands. They carefully sort their harvested cherries before depulping and fermenting overnight with their own micro-mills. Then the coffee is washed and laid out on patios to shed the excess water from the coffee parchment. Next the coffee takes a detour from the conventional path of processing in other origins, wherein, the coffee parchment is removed while the coffee still has a high moisture content. This wet-hulling process or Giling Basah leaves the coffee bean exposed while drying on patios to a moisture percentage acceptable for export and gives the beans their distinct bluish color.

Balinese producers continue to maintain a traditional rural lifestyle organized around a Subak Abian, which is a reference to the ecologically sustainable irrigation systems developed more than 1,000 years ago by Hindu priests who practice Tri Hita Karana, a philosophy focused on the harmonization between the environment, humans and God. These traditions are followed in coffee cultivation, which means pesticides and synthetic fertilizers are never used. In recent years, local producer groups have begun to partner with regional exporters like Indokom to establish organic and Rainforest Alliance certifications, which harmonize with their traditional principles of conserving forest, soil, and water resources.