INDONESIA - Ijen Highlands - Komasti/Andungsa/Bourbon - Natural Process 250g
Historically, Indonesia had fabulous coffee but after the Leaf Rust disaster of 1876, commodity coffees were planted and quantity became valued over quality.
85-90% of coffee grown here is still Robusta (mainly used for instant coffee) but there is a growing movement returning to the world class Arabica "Java" coffees of previous centuries.
High altitudes and volcanic soils are a perfect environment for quality coffees.
This one really stood out for us in our usual blind tasting; Cherry, strawberry, vanilla, dark chocolate, almond. Whatever you like in your cup, this is absolutely delicious!!
Coffee Details
LOCATION: Botolinggo Village, East Java Province, Indonesia
ALTITUDE: 1100 - 1500m
Kevenka was formed by entrepreneur brothers Kevin & Kenny Soewondo from Surubaya in East Java. They initially started in coffee by opening a cafe in Surubaya and then, realising they could roast themselves, opened a roastery. This soon led to them becoming inquisitive about the supply of green coffee they received and in turn to start processing green coffee themselves from the highlands in and around Mt Ijen.. The natural next step was to start selling green coffee in the expanding internal specialty market as well as exporting. In recent years they have been renting old processing facilities that were previously used for rice drying and turned this into their processing center at the bottom of Mt Ijen. Kevin has since travelled to Colombia to undertake the Q processing level 3 qualification, to enhance their knowledge and improve their processing.
They have embraced technology too, by investing in a small cherry colour sorter that helps them to be precise with the cherry and consistency. They are using a more long term solution to ensure they have the cherry they need without penalising farmers and collectors to sort this. Historically, with the wet hulled process in Indonesia, there has never been the incentive to deliver uniform ripe cherry due to the high demand and prices often seen in the local market. To get cherry the colour sorter has opened more opportunities for them and also increased their efficiency by not needing to hand-sort all the coffee before processing. For the 2025 season they have also invested in a Pinhalese mechanical drier due to the often wet environment they have to dry their coffee in.
Mt. Ijen, Indonesia is a mountain located in East Java, around 3,5 hours’ drive from Bali. It is a somewhat active volcano in East Java province, Indonesia. A popular tourist destination is its crater which has the world's biggest acid lake, bright turquoise in colour, that burns with a blue fire from the sulphur in the water.
The coffee farmers that live on these two mountains usually also farm and sell tobacco and other commodities when the coffee season is over. Their grandparents are usually ethnically originally from Madura Island (a smaller island north of Java Island). Many of them speak the Madurese language, even though Javanese is spoken in Surabaya, the closest big city to these two mountains.
The brothers work with 5 areas on Mt Ijen souring their cherry through collectors and their total network of farmers is up to 500. The villages they source from are Cucuk, Aldi, Sutrisno, Sunotoand and Lis.
All the coffees come from these 5 sites and then arrive to their processing center in Botolinggo village. Kevenka also have their own small micro dry mill where they will prepare the coffees for final export.