Indonesia's growing thirst for local coffee curbs bean exports

Record ID: 1122871

  • Title: Indonesia's growing thirst for local coffee curbs bean exports
  • Date: 22nd June 2018
  • Summary: PANGALENGAN, WEST JAVA PROVINCE, INDONESIA (RECENT - MAY 9, 2018) (REUTERS) COFFEE FARM LABOURERS MARCHING INTO FARM COFFEE FARM LABOURERS ARRIVING IN FARM PLOT LABOURER PICKING CHERRIES CHERRIES IN BUCKET VARIOUS OF CHERRIES BEING POURED INTO SACK PANGALENGAN, WEST JAVA PROVINCE, INDONESIA (RECENT - MAY 8, 2018) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF FARM LABOURERS DRYING CHERRIES LABOURER
  • Embargoed: 6th July 2018 01:41
  • Keywords: Indonesia coffee plantation export cafes roastery commodity
  • Location: PANGALENGAN, DEPOK, JAKARTA, INDONESIA
  • City: PANGALENGAN, DEPOK, JAKARTA, INDONESIA
  • Country: Indonesia
  • Topics: Human Interest / Brights / Odd News,Society/Social Issues
  • Reuters ID: LVA0018LE3XVP
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: For decades, Indonesia has supplied coffee roasters worldwide with prized beans that give a distinctive taste to brews favored by connoisseurs. Most locals, however, preferred tea.
    But now, as younger generations switch to coffee and hundreds of independent coffee carts and roasters pop up across the archipelago, Indonesia's consumption of beans is rising. That's left less coffee for export and forced up prices for foreign buyers.
    Coffee consumption in Indonesia, particularly for Sumatra's Arabica beans, has doubled since 2010, making the country among the fastest growing coffee markets in the world according to the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).
    Wildan Mustofa, owner of the Frinsa Coffee Collective in West Java province of Pangalengan, contends that the trend has evolved into a new creative industry.
    As the harvest period for Arabica beans opens in May and June, farmers are preparing for another year of rising local coffee buyers competing for the best quality beans before they're exported elsewhere.
    Domestic coffee beans sales, usually accounted for 20 to 30 percent of the total sales of Mustofa's plantation has increased one fold from a few years ago, said Mustofa, whose family manage around a combined 30-hectare of land that is about 180 kilometers from capital Jakarta.
    Exports from the world's fourth largest-coffee growing nation have dropped by around 20 percent over the past five years, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
    The country's tight supplies are already reflected in first-quarter 2018 shipping data, with coffee exports down 26 percent from the same period in 2017, Indonesia's Statistics Agency data show.
    The increasing local demand was boosted by hundreds of small, independent coffee shops and micro-roasteries mushrooming in Jakarta and other urban areas throughout Indonesia in recent years as more coffee drinkers switched from cheap, low-quality instant coffee or tea to local single origin coffee.
    Many of the new roasters would offer farmers much higher prices for their Arabica beans, vice president of Association of Indonesia Coffee Exporters and Industries (AICE) Pranoto Soenarto said.
    Hafendra Adam, whose micro-roastery runs on a clay pot, a rattan drying tray, and a 500 gram-capacity roasting machine, thinks it's become a "primary necessity" for these new-wave coffee enthusiasts to learn directly from roasteries or coffee shops.
    Each month, Adam's micro-roastery would sell five kilograms of Arabica beans, mostly to micro-coffee stalls and small offices. Smaller packs of 200 grams each are sold to friends and family keen to brew their own coffee at home.
    Expanding young middle income spenders as well as the boom of social media such as Instagram has helped boosts the local coffee culture. These "coffee snobs" are not only keen in just the drinking but also the entailing process behind every cup served.
    Coffee stalls like the one owned by Dedi Dwi Pribadi that operates on a wooden pull cart provide ample space and resources for the "snobs" to exchange information as they share cups of brewed coffee by the bustling Jakarta streets.
    Pribadi's "Warung Kopi Doa Ibu", or "'Mother's Prayer Stall", attracts both enthusiasts and passerbys who look for inexpensive quality coffee in a traditional, unimposing setting.
    The declining export number was further dampened by low production. Indonesia's annual coffee bean output fell over eight percent in the last five years, from around 691,163 tonnes in 2012, to an estimated 637,539 tonnes in 2017, according to the Agriculture Ministry data, due to unpredictable weather pattern and poor crop management.
    If local demand continue to grow like this, by 2025 there will be nothing to export, coffee farmer estimated.
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