The shores of Lake Toba, the perfect spot for a picturesque and successful coffee plantation. The highlands of Northern Sumatra have just the right conditions for growing great arabica. Altitude, volcanic soil, a plentiful supply of both rain and sun.
Every cup of coffee starts with a coffee tree. Only the red cherries are ready to be picked.
Farmer Sianturi Lamsiar hulls the ripe cherries by hand using a simple homemade machine. The skins will be reused as fertiliser on his farm.
Next he washes the sticky beans, now called parchment, to remove the natural sugars. The water must be absolutely clean or it can ruin the flavour of the coffee.
Now Sianturi must pray for sunshine to dry his beans. If the parchment sits for too long in a wet condition it will go mouldy and the beans will be rejected by buyers later.
A very high price is paid for Lintong coffee. Sianturi received almost four times the market price for his 2004 crop. But his wife still needs to run her own small business to help support their growing family.
Bigger farms, or intermediaries, may build large concrete patios to help with the drying. The process is still very labour intensive. When clouds appear, workers push all the coffee into the centre so it can be protected by tarpaulins.
The dried beans, now called green coffee, will be bought by a commodity house. Their experts roast and taste samples before seeking a buyer overseas.
Arabica coffee from Medan is world reknowned. Starbucks rated Lintong coffee as the best in the world in 2004.
