Roasted by Pala Kaffebrenneri

Pala was started in Trondheim by Idar Ellingsen in 2018, and is run today together with Roy Davidsen. Idar has worked in specialty coffee since 2005, first as a barista and coffee shop manager, then as head roaster and QC manager for Jacobsen og Svart and Langøra before opening his own roastery. He is a certified Q grader and a two-time Norwegian cupping champion.

The stated aim at Pala is to move backwards in the value chain and influence the coffee earlier than the final step, working with importers who are transparent about traceability. Roasting is deliberately restrained: the idea is that the roast should not overwrite what the green coffee already has. On a heavily fermented lot like this one, that restraint is the difference between fruit and mud.

They roast on a Diedrich IR-12, a 12 kg drum roaster that heats with infrared burners rather than an open flame, which gives a gentler, more even heat transfer than a conventional gas drum.

Java Frinsa Estate

Wildan Mustofa and his wife Atieq Mustikaningtyas began their coffee project in the Sindangkerta area of West Java in 2010, formalised as CV Frinsa Agrolestari in 2012. Wildan directs farming and processing; Atieq runs finance and human resources. Their son Fikri now handles a large share of day-to-day operations.

The estate did not start as a coffee business. The Bandung highlands were suffering repeated landslides and flooding, driven by deforestation and unsuitable farming on steep ground, and the couple went looking for a crop that could hold the slopes together while still paying. Coffee was the answer. Trees are grown under shade species including lamtoro, avocado and jackfruit, whose root systems stabilise the hillsides. Pulp is composted back into fertiliser and processing water is treated before reuse or release.

Frinsa now spans several growing zones in West Java, among them Weninggalih, Mekarwangi, Pengalengan and Garut, and runs its own wet mill, greenhouse, warehouse and dry mill. Owning the whole chain from cherry to export container is what lets them separate lots by variety and process rather than blending everything together, which remains rare in Indonesia.

Why this tastes nothing like typical Indonesian coffee

Most Indonesian coffee is wet-hulled (giling basah), where parchment is removed at a high moisture content. It is a practical response to a humid climate with unreliable drying weather, and it produces the earthy, herbal, low-acidity profile the region is known for. Wildan went the other direction from his first harvest, using fully washed processing and slow, controlled drying.

Since 2015 Frinsa has also worked on modern fermentation methods, including inoculating cherries with lactobacillus and various yeasts, developed partly with support from the Norwegian green coffee importer Nordic Approach. This lot is an extended honey: the skin is pulped off but the sticky mucilage is left on the parchment through an extended fermentation and drying period. The longer the sugars stay in contact with the seed, the more of that bubblegum and cherry character carries into the cup, along with the funk.

Specifications