About This Coffee
The province of Chimbu, which includes the Bomai area, is located in between the Western and Eastern Highlands. Unlike the surrounding areas, Chimbu does not have any flat plains nor valleys. The province consists out of a steep and continuous mountain range which makes coffee growing extremely difficult. Coffees coming from this area do not have a good reputation as they are usually blended with parchment coffees coming from the Western Highlands. Brokers buy the parchment of smallholder producers and pick up the coffee alongside the main roads or the highway to sell to exporters in Goroka.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
The Bomai coffee breaks with this tradition and provides greater transparency. Paul Sirigine started the Bomai project in 2013 by setting up a dry mill in Goroka, where they could process just coffees from smallholders from the Bomai Region. In 2015, they were granted an export license and were able to bring Bomai coffee to the international coffee market directly. This enabled them to indulge further in programs to support the smallholders they work with. Samuel Raffana, the executive officer of the dry mill, set up projects in the Bomai Region implementing practices to improve picking and wet processing. They also provided a warehouse in Chimbu where the coffee can be stored and checked before being transported to the mill in Goroka.
Coffee in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a relative newcomer to the specialty coffee scene. The remote locations of the nation’s smallholders—who produce 85% of total coffee in the country—combined with historically-poor infrastructure has made the transition to specialty difficult. Nonetheless, the country is working towards innovative solutions that will hopefully lead to better quality coffee and improved livelihoods for the nation’s smallholder coffee producers.