Southern Highlands B FW

This coffee is cultivated by smallholders in the Southern Highland Province. While it’s now less well known that it’s neighbors, the Western and Eastern Highlands, the Southern Highlands has the high altitudes and fertile soil necessary to cultivate good coffees.

Smallholders grow coffee on farms that are typically 0.5 to 5 hectares and sit at around 1,600 meters above sea level.

Smallholders have cultivated coffee in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea for many years, but in the past few decades, the region has had less coffee production and renown than other areas like the Western and Eastern Highlands. Coffee used to be the main cash crop for growers in the region but overall production in the Southern Highlands has dropped to almost nothing since the 1980s. Rootstock is older and yields are low. Those that do cultivate coffee often sell their coffee in neighboring Western Highlands, Eastern Highlands and Chimbu province.

Cherry is selectively handpicked by smallholders and processed on their farms. Each processing set up is unique but generally, cherry is pulped on a hand pulper and then fermented in bags or buckets for 1 to 2 days. Following fermentation, farmers wash coffee in clean water and then bring wet parchment to a central village drying area to dry on canvas or mats. Parchment is raked frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 5 to 10 days for parchment to dry.

The highlands form the backbone of PNG. With its high altitude and cooler climate, the highlands are perfect for the cultivation of high-quality Arabica Coffee. 70% of the population is still dependent on subsistence agriculture and small plots of coffee trees.  

Farming procedures are organic by default/ Chemicals, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are both unknown and unobtainable because of cost and logistics. As a result, coffee from the highlands has naturally low levels of caffeine and acidity, with absolutely no trace elements of chemicals and pollutants. This fact has been independently verified laboratories in Australia and Europe.