Papua New Guinea Nebilyer Valley

One Real 16oz. Pound

Coffee in Papua New Guinea  
From its earliest introduction to the present day, the arabica gene stock in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is considered one of the country’s strongest natural assets, not to mention one of the best-preserved typica lineage varieties in the world. These delicate genetics clearly thrive in PNG’s highlands, which are among the most pristine and fertile on the planet. 

For hundreds of thousands of rural farmers, coffee would be, and still is, the very first and only source of western currency. As commercial exports ramped up, more indigenous Papuans adopted coffee as a cash crop alongside their traditional economies, in most cases processing it at home and selling humid parchment to traveling collectors. 

Nebilyer Valley coffees share a rich, tactile, deep caramelized, earthy-sweetness and PNG's characteristic mildly earthy balance, with touches of citrus zest and sweet wood smoke.

Aroma: Rich, fruity, nutty
Cup: Creamy, smooth, chocolate, spice
Finish: Lingering, rich, delicately smoky

About this Coffee

GROWER: Smallholder farmers organized around the Kuta mill
REGION: Tambul-Nebilyer District
ALTITUDE: 1,350 meters
PROCESS: Fully washed and dried in the sun
VARIETY: Bourbon, Typica
HARVEST: April-September
SOIL: Volcanic loam
CERTIFICATION: Conventional

The Leahy Brothers Legacy
The Leahy family is considered the founders of the modern coffee era in Nebilyer and the nearby Waghi valleys. Brothers Mick and Dan Leahy, originally Australian prospectors, first entered the zone on foot in 1933, becoming the first westerners to make contact with the region’s indigenous tribes. To open access to the highland valleys, the Leahys built an airstrip that is now one of the main streets in the town of Mount Hagen. 

For multiple generations, the Leahys have been based in PNG’s remote western highlands, growing, processing, and exporting specialty coffee against all odds, becoming one of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) most prominent coffee families.   

Supporting the industry as a peaceful and stable alternative to subsistence farming and local trade, the Leahy family has established an extensive coffee infrastructure in the valley that supports smallholders and larger estate owners alike through seedling distribution, organic fertilizer, processing, storage, milling, and exporting, all through the family’s Kuta mill. 

Nebilyer Valley and Mount Hagen
PNG’s Nebilyer Valley is a broad and fertile high-elevation valley in the country’s western highlands. Mount Hagen, the largest nearby city with about 50,000 people, is extremely remote but also PNG’s third-largest city.

Mount Hagen is a thriving hub for rural trade across the highlands, and a veritable metropolis compared to most municipalities on the Highlands Highway, PNG’s sole access route to the country’s central provinces.

Along with tropical fruits, spices, vanilla, livestock, and a considerable variety of subsistence crops, farmers have been cultivating coffee here for about 80 years. As with other coffee-producing areas of PNG, there is a mixture of large estates, known locally as “plantations”, and individual smallholders with their own ancestral plots or sharecropped land leases for cultivation.