Orang Utan Honey Process (Sumatran)

The main thing that makes this Sumatra so special and sets it apart so far from the other coffees from the same region is how it’s processed.  This Sumatra is Honey Processed.

Honey process means the cherry is pulped, then dried with some of the sticky fruit mucilage still on the bean. No honey is added. If you look at the picture you can locate the mucilage by seeing the red and brown color that is left on bean. Usually a washed coffee will strip the mucilage off.
The name comes from that sugar-rich layer, which looks and feels like honey while it dries.
It sits between the two classic methods:
•  Washed: pulp, ferment, wash all the mucilage off, then dry. Cleaner, brighter cup.
•  Natural: dry the whole cherry intact, then hull. Heavier fruit, more funk, higher risk.
•  Honey: skin off, mucilage left on, dried sticky, then hulled once dry. More sweetness and body than washed, cleaner than a natural.
How far the mucilage is left on is sometimes graded white, yellow, red, or black honey. More mucilage and slower drying means a darker parchment and a fruitier cup. Drying is the risky part: the sticky beans have to be turned constantly or they mold or over-ferment.
On this Sukarame sack, honey is a specialty choice. Most Gayo coffee is wet-hulled, like all the Sumatra's we have offered in the past, dried only partway, hulled while still wet, then finished. Honey lots from the same station are dry-hulled after the mucilage has set, which is why they taste sweeter and less earthy than a classic Sumatra.  That's the critical part about what makes this Sumatra special.

History of the origin:
Sukarame means “gathering.” It is a village in Bener Meriah, Aceh, on the slopes of the volcano Pantan Terong in Sumatra’s Gayo Highlands. Family plots here go back to the Dutch period, when coffee reached Gayo in 1908. Orang Utan Coffee partnered with the group in 2020: 145-plus smallholders on about 80.5 hectares, next to the Leuser Ecosystem, the last stronghold of the Sumatran orangutan. A premium on each exported kilo goes to the farmers and to the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme.

More information about the orangutan coffee project and they support the Orangutan habitat: Orangutan.coffee/en