Single Origin - Sulawesi Viennese "Celebes" Kalossi - Specialty Coffee

Superbly rich, big-bodied and smooth, elegant balance of bitter and sweet tones with flowers and deep, dry plum-wine fruitiness.

Roast: Dark

Processing: Traditional Washing

Altitude: 1300 -1400 M.A.S.L.

Harvest: May - November

12 oz. Handcrafted Specialty Coffee

Genuine Sulawesi “Celebes” Kalossi

What’s the big deal? Why “Genuine”? Here’s the story:

Sulawesi arabica used to be grown strictly in the mountains in the center of the island of Sulawesi. Toraja (also known as Torajaland) is the mountainous area where the coffee is grown, and Kalossi is the small town in central Sulawesi which serves as the collection point for the coffee from that area. Some shippers call this coffee Sulawesi Toraja, others Sulawesi Kalossi, and a few still refer to it as Celebes (the old Dutch colonial name for the island).

A few years ago, people started to plant coffee around Malakaji mountain, southeast of Makassar, in the very south of the island. The soil and growing conditions in this region are very different from that in the traditional areas, and the coffee is inferior.

While Sumatra processes the majority of its coffee in a Wet-Hull manner, our partners in Sulawesi, the exporter PT TOARCO, encourages a more traditional Washing from the producers from whom we jointly source. Fermentation is still sometimes a part of the post-harvest processing, but increasingly mechanical demucilaging is more common, and the coffee is typically dried on heavy tarps. The profile of these coffees tends to be more acidic and fruity, with clarity and creamy body: That profile, the additional labor necessary in production, and the lower availability of the top lots of these coffees can make them pricier than other offerings from Indonesia, but we find that the remarkable cups are truly worth it.

HISTORY

Formerly known as Celebes, Sulawesi along with the rest of Indonesia was under Dutch control from the early 1600s until World War II, and coffee production was introduced and dictated by the Dutch East India Company. In 1750, the first Typica plants arrived, as they had begun to spread around the other islands of Java and Sumatra.