The highland region of Kintamani, between the volcanoes of Batukaru and Agung, is the main coffee-growing area on Bali. Many coffee farmers on Bali are members of a traditional farming system called Subak Abian, which is based on the Hindu philosophy of “Tri Hita Karana“. According to this philosophy, the three causes of happiness are good relations with God, other people and the environment. 

For Archipel, our arabica kintamani coffee cherries came from this lush coffee plantation that nestled in Batukaang Village in Kintamani. Our coffee processor partner, Karana Global, partners with a group of farmers whose majority are female farmers (25 of them), carefully pick the ripened cherries prior to being delivered to the sorting, fermentation and roasting facility.

Unlike other parts of Indonesia, such as Sumatra, Bali coffee has a single harvest season each year—typically around May to August, hence their main income throughout the year depends on whether they can have a good productive harvest season each time.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case each year, with more and more issues in climate change due to global warming, the past recent years harvested season has not given them the best result!

Therefore they also grow other plants such as spices (cloves, red ginger, long pepper etc) and citrus in between the coffee trees, so they can sell the produce as the source of their additional income. 

With more than 13.700 islands in indonesia archipelago, start from Sabang as the very west point, to Merauke at very east, Maluku or famously known as the Spice Islands, because of the nutmeg, mace and cloves that were exclusively found there, had onced sparked colonial interest from Europe in the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, the glory of Maluku as a spice-producing province has now disappeared and farmers now live in poverty. 

This is more than enough reason for us, Archipel, to contribute in the movement – even with a tiny baby step each time – to bring back the glory of this island and its people. 

As a small enterprise, geographically challenged by the thousands of km distance between the location of our processing facility and the Spice Islands, hence at the very moment, the best practice that we have is to collaborate with other local producers and processors as the extended hands of our brand.

These are the ones that have direct relation to the farmers in Banda, Ternate, Tidore, Seram, and Ambon, whose not only give the fair price to the farmers under their group, but also empowering them with additional knowledge such as cleaner and more sustainable farming practice and also introduce them to further processing knowledge post harvest stage.