About This Coffee
Some of the first coffee trees at Amuliba Estate were planted in the 1950s by the aptly named Australian expat-farmer, Norm Plant. In that decade, which was a significant period for coffee development in ( Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) highlands, Norm also planted the first trees at Amuliba’s neighbor, Sigri Plantation.
The Karkopi company purchased the estate in 1978. Today, the plantation continues to produce coffee and serves as a centralized processing facility for nearby smallholders.
The Karkopi company is owned by 48 shareholders in the Philip Kapal’s clan in the Tsekaka language group. PNG is home to more than 800 languages. With such linguistic diversity, it makes sense that villages are formed around shared languages. Within those villages, tribes, clans and house lines further delineate kinship and community.
Amuliba also offers wet and dry milling services for neighboring farmers who can sell their harvests to the estate as cherry or parchment.
Cultivation
Generous shade cover helps minimize the number of inputs needed to maintain plant and soil health.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Coffee is selectively handpicked and then pulped, fermented and washed in clean water. Wet parchment is then laid to dry in the sun. Once dry, parchment is prepared for export at the estate’s dry mill.
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.