Other Production Characteristics:
Harvest Period:
April to September
The Story of Cafés Lugat :
Lionel Lugat
is the legendary roaster at
MaxiCoffee
. Over the years, he has surrounded himself with
an expert team of roasters.
This
coffee specialist
,
judge
in the
French Coffee Championships
and
expert columnist for our coffee company
tells the story of
Cafés Lugat
and his passion for
coffee roasting
below.
More About This Coffee :
Up in the mountains of
Papua New Guinea
, we find the
Sigri Coffee Plantation
, which grows some of the finest gourmet coffee in the world.
In the Highlands near Mount Hagen
, the coffee plantation is located at the western end of the Wahgi Valley, a huge valley, bounded by mountains whose peakes exceed 4000 meters. The valley floor is covered in a lush green carpet of subsistance crops of sweet potato and commercial crops of coffee, tea and vegetables.
The coffea plants grow at altitudes of around 1500 meters, where they benefit from a cool climate and plenty of rain. They grow under shade trees, which protect them from the wind, sun and heavy rain. These trees are also home to plenty of local birds.
All the coffea plants on the plantation are of the
Typica variety
. The Sigri plantation pays special attention to quality control. Every coffea fruit is hand picked and carefully checked.
The cherries must be really red, as this shows that they are full of sugar and acidic. The carefully selected harvested cherries are then pulped on the same day. The parchment coffee, meaning the coffee bean still covered in its shell, is immersed in water for several days, which greatly improves its quality. It is then dried naturally in the sun.
Geographical Location:
A Bit of Background
Located in the
Melanesian archipelago
,
Papua New Guinea
covers the eastern part of the vast island of
New Guinea
. The whole of New Guinea is considered the third biggest island in the world, after Australia and Greenland. The other half is made up of the province
West Papua
, which belongs to
Indonesia
.
The country grew its first
coffea plants
in around 1800. Approximately 95% of the
coffee
made in
Papua New Guinea
is
wet-processed Arabica coffee
. The rest is Robusta coffee, grown on the plains.
In
Papua New Guinea
, nearly a million people live off the
coffee
industry. The population tends to be split into tribes, who live in small villages in clearly defined territories. Around 90% of smallholder coffee farmers work together as a cooperative to wet-process their harvest, while 76 large producers produce close to 25% of the country's total exports.
The mountainous geography, deep valleys, shaded forests and humid climate are the perfect conditions to create a quality
coffee
.
Smallholder coffee farmers take care of a plot of 2 hectares or less, on which there are between 20 and 600
coffea plants
. Some 80 plantations or estates are registered. The most famous among them are the
Sigri
,
Bunum Wo
,
Arona Valley
,
Gumanch
and
Tremearne
plantations.
Nowadays, Australian organisations like NASAA and BioFarm Australia assist Papua New Guinean coffee producers towards achieving
organic certification
.
The local
coffee
industry is monitored by the
Coffee Industry Corporation
. The country's government has always supported the production of
Arabica
coffee. At the beginning of every season, it guarantees a minimum sale price for farmers.