ABOUT THE PRODUCER:

Mikael Jasin is the co-founder of SSG Coffee Company. He started his coffee journey in 2012 while living in Melbourne, Australia before eventually heading the coffee bars of some of Melbourne's busiest cafes. He moved back to his native Indonesia in 2017 to join Common Grounds Coffee Roasters & ST. ALi Jakarta doing Marketing & Quality Control roles. Mikael is also a coffee competitor. After competing several times, Mikael won the Indonesian Barista Championship in 2019. He went on to become the first Indonesian in a World Barista Championship final, coming 4th in WBC Boston, 2019. Mikael now works with clients locally and internationally as well as going to origin to do post-harvest processing. Mikael enjoys drinking natural wine, eating carb-loaded food, doing 4am runs & working out and sometimes not eating any food for days for charity.

Kamala is part of SSG's Catur Collection of taste profiles.

"At SSG, we would like to help tackle this challenge by producing coffee in taste profiles rather than merely producing by the variety. Together with our partner farmers, we produce 4 distinctive taste profiles. They were made possible by our proprietary processing techniques that were developed to ensure that we are able to offer the same taste profiles every harvest year".

The name catur comes from an old Sanskrit language meaning four, referring to the 4 key taste profiles."

Bumi: it means means earth in Indonesian. It is our take on a classic Indonesian profile. The coffees under Bumi taste profile has the same chocolate, nice brown spices and sweetness that people like about Indonesian coffee but elevated with extra vibrancy and clean taste that our Bumi process offers."

Pucuk: it means the tip of a tea leaf in Sanskrit. This taste profile includes delicate taste profiles that are more tealike with soft citric acidity."

Senja: it means sunset in Sanskrit. Just like the different colour and stages of sunset, this taste profiles is signified by a combination of deeper and more complex vibrancy with an accompanying sweetness and rounded body." 

Kamala: it means lotus as well as pale red in Sanskrit. This taste profile is our take on what Indonesian coffees could be under innovative and experimental post-harvest processing techniques. Kamala offers different arrays of fruity, cacao nibs and out of this world flavours!

BEHIND THIS COFFEE:

This coffee is produced by SSG's partners at Tuang Coffee, in Ruteng, Flores. We picked ripe coffee cherries, float them to sort and immediately put the cherries inside polypropylene bags to start anaerobic fermentation and control its rate. After the desired fermentation is reached, the cherries are taken out to be dried naturally on raised beds and are rested in their skin to preserve the flavour. These fermentation steps ensure the development of red tropical fruit notes and cacao nibs aftertaste that you get in the Kamala profile. Tuang partners up with local farmers in Manggarai Region, Flores Island, Indoneesia. They provide processing infrastructure for the farmers so they do not have to worry about their cost in processing their coffee. The farmers have mind-set that coffee is a simple commodity product that tastes bitter, but we somehow want to change that into a perspective where coffee is a complex product that does not always taste bitter, because it is a fruit. Therefore, we ask them to create something different and to unleash diamonds inside a simple product we get used to knowing it as coffee.

ABOUT THE WASHING STATION:

Tuang Coffee's trees are grown organically in 1400-1700 masl in the east side of Manggarai Region. Manggarai is considered as the most fertile area in Flores island. Flores Island is located in East Nusa Tenggara Province of Indonesia. The coffee trees are mostly surrounded by taro, yum and banana trees. We always try to improve what we have, as we believe that coffee is not only a form of bitter and black, it should be something more than that. To experience the idea, we are here to keep exploring the coffee journey, process of changing the paradigm and judgement – still in the field of coffee. Every step that we take is to feel and share the experience from cherry to every sip of it.