Roast: Light
Origin: Papua New Guinea
Process: Washed
Body: Heavy
Acidity: Medium
Flavor: Dark Chocolate, Brown Sugar, Blackberry, Dried Plum
About the Coffee
Volcafe PNG is the only exporter to own a wet mill in PNG. Since its purchase in 1995, the Lahamenegu wet mill in the Eastern Highlands has been refreshed with brand-new machinery to take PNG cherries to the next level in quality control. While most smallholders wash and process coffee themselves and bring parchment to market, Volcafe PNG has the capability to buy in cherry and control processing consistency.
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The mill’s supply chain services smallholder farms within a 30-kilometer radius and receives freshly harvested cherries daily. In addition to adapting local producers’ mindsets to approach coffee farming as a commercial business, Volcafe PNG has also invested particular focus in building traceability programs and farmer profiles for the PNG green coffee it sources.
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What does coffee from Papua New Guinea taste like?
Specialty PNG coffee is well-balanced with mellow flavors, moderate acidity, and a full-bodied, buttery quality. The Eastern Highlands is fertile with loamy volcanic soil, and the coffee that comes through the Lahamenegu wet mill is grown at 1550masl spread across approximately 600 hectares of land.
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This peaberry green coffee is pleasantly round and creamy, full of dark chocolate and brown sugar notes with hints of blackberry and dried plum and medium acidity.
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Papua New Guinea Coffee Production
Out of the nine million people in PNG, around 2.5 million (30%) are involved in coffee. Exports of coffee account for approximately 6% (US$72 million) of the country’s GDP, and it’s the second leading agricultural product after palm oil. With numbers like that, most people expect coffee to be highly valued locally, but production levels tell a different story.