Sulawesi is an ancient island, far older than the rest of Indonesia. Worn down by erosion over the millennia, the orchid shape of the island itself belies the crazy geography you encounter in the interior. Thousand-foot rock walls explode vertically out of the rice padis, capped by massive spires shrouded in perpetual mist. When you start seeing houses that look like boats, the dreamland illusion really sets in.
Though most of Indonesia is Moslem, the people living in the highlands of Tana Toraja identify themselves as Protestant, although their version is probably a little different than what you’re used to. Heavily animist, the culture is reminiscent of Santeria, complete with pig festivals and a fondness for playing with the bones of the ancestors. It is a strange, beautiful, and complex place, exactly like the coffee that grows there.
The vast majority of the coffee produced in Sulawesi is processed in the “wet-hulled” style (locally called Giling Basah). As there is a great deal of conflicting information out there, owing mainly to the fact that the process is not exactly followed uniformly in all origins, a review is in order. After harvest, the cherry is stripped off by mechanical depulper by the farmer. This leaves the sticky, mucilage-covered parchment, which is allowed to ferment overnight in plastic buckets. Fermentation is typically done “dry” in the sense that little or no water is added. This is very different from what you may have encountered in say, Central America, where the parchment is immersed in water as it ferments (Indonesians refer to this process as “underwater fermentation”). The reasons for this stem mainly from the fact that the availability of ground water can be limited, and there are almost no large, centralized mills. This is undeniably responsible in part for some of the earthy, foresty flavors one encounters in the cup, as using more water in processing seems to almost always result in a more sanitized profile; however, the next stage may be equally culpable.
After rinsing the parchment in the early morning, the farmer will dry the coffee (typically on tarpaulins) down to about 45% moisture before selling it in the mountain parchment markets to millers. The miller will then dry the parchment down to about 30%, before running it through the frictional wet-hulling machine, which spits out a pale, swollen, ghostly looking bean which needs to be finished on the patio. All throughout this process, parchment is stored and transported at varying degrees of wetness in large plastic gunny sacks. Anyone familiar with this practice can attest what a dangerous game it is to play. Leaving wet parchment to sit without air-circulation, particularly if it is out in the sun, can result in mildew (the negative end of the “earthy” spectrum), or even outright mold. Thus, the key to securing top quality is to rely on the shortest possible supply lines, which means buying parchment at the highest possible collection points. Of course, you also get the highest altitude coffees this way.
