This March we're thrilled to bring you KABIUFA PAPUA NEW GUINEA, an exciting coffee sourced at origin by our coffee trainer Ryan Howell.
The community in PNG’s Eastern Highlands have come together to produce an extraordinary coffee, with honey sweetness from aroma to finish. Each sip will paint a smile across your face.
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March Bean of the Month | KABUIFA PAPUA NEW GUINEA
This March we are thrilled to bring you an exciting coffee sourced at origin in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea by our coffee trainer Ryan Howell.
Ryan was able to visit Moses Venapoe of Riverside Coffee and spend time with the growers, and we can’t thank them all enough for the warm welcome his hosts provided.
Moses has kicked off a small revolution in the coffee growing community of Kabiufa and it’s an exciting time for us to be involved.
Coffee has been grown in Papua New Guinea since the 1920s, when seeds were brought from the famous Jamaica Blue Mountain estates. These coffee plants thrived in their new home: after all the two islands aren’t so geographically different, both being tropical islands with high ridged mountains formed by volcanoes.
There are now more than 60 large plantations in PNG, but much of the overall national production comes from individual farmers with small groves of trees. Papua New Guinea Kabiufa is a brilliant example of how great coffee from those small growers can be.
Until recently, coffee growing around Kabiufa was a fairly solitary, anonymous business. Small lot growers of the Eastern Highlands would pick their crop, process the lot and dry the coffee down, before dropping the bag at a roadside scale where it would be weighed, paid and mixed in with the rest.
In 2019, Moses Venapoe brought together 50 smallholder coffee farmers who were committed to improving their coffee. These farmers come together to hand sort their cherries to be milled and dried. At Riverside Coffee the rate is 30% above the market price, and so only the reddest, ripest, sweetest fruit is selected.
This combination of good pricing and the pride that comes from having the coffee trace back to this select group has made the coffee come on in leaps and bounds. Farmers are able to invest back into their crops and the cycle keeps on going!
TASTING NOTES
Papua New Guinea Kabiufa has a lovely note of honey running through from the aroma to the finish. Aromatics of cedar and coffee pulp (the fruit coffee seeds grow in) add to the complexity and depth.
Blueberry, orange, and milk chocolate flavours combine in the cup to create an overall impression of soft sweetness, with layers of flavour developing as the coffee cools. The aftertaste of lemon zest gives the finish a tiny kick, a beautiful counterbalance to the persistent sweetness of the honey note.
BREW RECOMMENDATIONS
Honey, blueberry, orange and milk chocolate notes mean the Papua New Guinea Kabiufa suits all styles of brewing. In this writer’s opinion, PNG is a sleeping giant of specialty coffee, underrated and underrepresented with a lot of amazing flavour to offer.
If you like an espresso-based drink, that will amp up the chocolate flavour giving you a warm and rich base to a latte, flat white or cappuccino. The Kabiufa has been impeccably processed, so it’s nice and clean with minimal bitterness, even if you’re leaning towards a long black.
For all our filter-loving friends, give the Kabiufa the pourover treatment and you’ll enjoy the juicy blueberry, orange and lemon zest mingling sweetly with the honey and milk chocolate.
Aeropress is always good for extra body, but you’ll be trading the orange in for a deeper honey flavour. However you have it, treat it with care and we promise you’ll be pleasantly surprised.