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Chapter II · Closed
Sumatra
Ten days at Back Bay Estate in the Karo highlands, following one coffee from a nursery tunnel to a sack in a warehouse.
We had read about wet-hulling for years and understood none of it until we were standing in it, in the rain, watching parchment go grey-green under a blue net.
The nursery came first — tunnels of seedlings, two years from anything drinkable. Then the rows, then the tanks, then the patio, then a mill that sounded like a small factory because that is what it is. In ten days we saw the same lot at five stages of its life, which is not something you can do on a buying trip.
What we took away was mostly a set of questions. Why turn by hand four times a day rather than three. What the shade net actually does. How you decide a lot is finished. We asked all of them badly, in two languages, and got answers we are still thinking about.
Photography
People
She ran the nursery, the rows, the tanks and the warehouse, and walked us through all four in an afternoon.
Everything we know about this coffee came out of that walk. We have it on video and we have not transcribed it yet, which is why there is no quotation on this page.
Process, in order
Nursery
Tunnels of seedlings. Two years to a cherry worth picking.
Fermentation
Tanks behind the mill. Timing decided by hand and nose.
Drying
Parchment under blue shade net, turned four times a day.
Hulling
The mill interior: belts, screens, noise.
Sorting
Screens and eyes. The last stage before the sack.
Footage from this chapter
What we noticed
Turned by hand
Four times a day, by whoever was nearest. No machine anywhere in the drying stage.
The bag was wrong
Nothing we tasted on the table resembled the notes printed on Sumatran bags at home.
Signage as record
A yellow board in the rows reading RED CATURRA · NOVEMBER 2024 — the only written provenance on site.