Bittersweet’ Coffee from Papua’s Central Highlands

Wamena coffee refers to a type of coffee that actually comes from many regions in the Central Highlands of Papua. It is famed for its taste and organic processing, but the farmers that grow the coffee are now growing old

Kompas/Bahana Patria Gupta

Kugima villagers harvest coffee on Wednesday (17/11/2021) in Wolo district, Jayawijaya, Papua. The area typically grows the S-975 variety of Arabica coffee, which grows at an average altitude of 1,600 meters above sea level. Papua’s coffee industry is constrained by the issue of regeneration amid the majority of aging coffee farmers.

At the foot of the towering hills reaching into to the sky over Kugima village in Wolo district, Jayawijaya, Papua, lays a panorama of neatly arranged coffee plantations. Among the thick foliage and red coffee berries, Sili Gombo (63), accompanied by his wife and a relative, is clearing wild grass and weeds.

He has been managing 3-hectare Arabica coffee plantation for several decades. The first time he learned about coffee was in 1993, when the 1989-1998 Jayawijaya regent, Jos Buce Wenas, gave him some seedlings to plant.