Papua New Guinea - Western Highlands: Mong Coffee

Produced by: Rexson “Rex” Rabuni, Miktimb Farmers Group

Origin: Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea

We Taste: Green Grape, Nougat, Milk Chocolate, Honey

Varietals: Blue Mountain, Caturra, Mundo Novo

Altitude: 1850 masl

Process: Washed

12 oz Whole Bean Coffee

This is our first ever coffee from Papua New Guinea. It’s tremendously exciting to be able to buy an offer of this caliber from PNG as a small roasting company. Commercial coffee production is dominant in Papua New Guinea and higher scoring lots are usually purchased in advance by larger companies with greater buying power.

In February I had the unique opportunity to work with Showroom Coffee (the retail arm of Crop to Cup Importers) in their warehouse and learned about this coffee’s story. Crop to Cup has long-enduring producer relationships in PNG and recently launched a quality-improvement program with a handful of producers throughout the Western, Central and Eastern Highlands. In it, they reiterated quality control measures —common to places like Ethiopia and Mexico — such as ripe red cherry picking, cherry flotation, lot separation, and slower drying on raised beds.

One of the producers from Mong Coffee, Rex, was the only one from this program able to implement the slower drying process which triples the cost and time in this stage. His efforts are abundantly apparent in the clarity of his coffee with its green grape brightness and raw honey & milk chocolate sweetness. Other coffees from neighboring farms came in at a distinctly lower quality.