Flores Lot 753, Indonesia | Anaerobic Natural Yeast | Mixed Varietal

Tuang Coffee comes from Ruteng, the Manggarai region, Flores Island, and Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia. It started in 2014, from a decision by Andre Tuang to leave his job in Jakarta and head to head to Flores to work with farmers in Flores Manggarai. Before then it was rare to find coffee in that area that had was not mixed with coffee from other regions like Sumatra, Java, or Toraja. Coffee was exported as commodity grade while farmers were under appreciated. They suffered from limited market access and unfair payment systems. Also few people cared about specialty coffee processing. 

By 2023, the organisation has more than 2000 members gathered in 12 farmer groups. Farmers are trained every season on when and how to pick their cherries for maximum quality. Tools are provided such as grass cutters that encourage farmers not to use any herbicides, pruning scissors and gloves. Financial support is also provided with a pre harvest deposit or a bonus after the season. In March 2002 there was a clash between coffee farmers and local police during which farmers were forced to cut down coffee trees to create land space for forested areas. Affected farmers were invited to collaborate with the Tuang group in 2016 to explore the opportunities for producing specialty coffee. 

The name ‘mbohang’ comes from “mbo”, meaning valley and “hang” meaning to eat or to rest. The area is shaded and is a good location to rest from the long walk. Mbohang is in a valley of the central area in the Manggarai Region. In this region the weather is foggy and rainy in the afternoons. The local people have been growing coffee trees since the 1980s in the forest area of Mbohang. The farm has 42 permanent employees and an extra 98 during the harvest months of April-August. The farm is 600 hectares in size and 1500masl and grows yellow caturra, typica and kartika.

Coffee grows here in very healthy conditions. Trees have plentiful leaves and are well spaced from one another. Farmers use dried grass, leaves, and pulped cherry skins from the processing place for their organic fertilizer. Pruning is carried out only when needed, and trees are maintained at a height of around 1.8 meters. Other shade trees grown around the coffee areas including Leucaena leucocephala, Eucalyptus, urophylla, Ficus carica, and Albizia chinensis.