Simalem Specialty Coffee (SSC) is a specialty coffee producer, specializing in single origin nanolots around the Lake Toba region in Karo Regency, Sumatra. We process coffee from our own organically certified farm, as well as our farmer partners’ from the surrounding farms.
Only fully riped cherries are handpicked and processed in dry (natural), semi dry (honey), wet (washed), and gilingbasah (wet hulled) methods, under the supervision of our CQI licensed Q Grader and Q Processor, Mr. Johan Kwe. In 2022, under our partner company 3 Beans Coffee, we were chosen to be the official LALCAFE® yeasts distributor for Indonesia.
Simalem Coffee Estate started from a 1-Ha farm back in 2004 as part of our late founder Bapak Tamin Sukardi‘s research program in agricultural best practice to help the surrounding Karo region farmers.
Coffee was part of the research program to analyze soil and climate suitability, beside oranges, teas, loquat, and 50 other kinds of vegetables. One of the research experiments were to compare the quality and quantity of production of the crops planted in an open field vs planted inside the green house.
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Our coffee farm started with only one cultivar, Catimor - Sigararutang, which were mainly used for research purpose on organic best practise for coffee plants. In 2019, as part of Mr Johan Kwe’s coffee research and education program, we started to explore further on growing other varieties like Gayo 1, Gayo 2, Longberries, Andong Sari and Bourbon, with the goal of diversification and sustainability for our coffee farmer partners.
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Currently we work with 50 farmer partners across the Karo Regency, North Sumatera Province. They come from 10 villages with different terroir, stretching from Desa Singa to Regaji to Pangambatan. Where we have learned to match each village’s coffees that’s best suited to specific post-harvest processing methods.
