Meet Our New Sumatra Bener Meriah Lychee Co-Fermented Coffee
If you've been drinking specialty coffee for a while, you probably have an idea of what coffee from Sumatra tastes like.
Rich. Heavy. Earthy. Herbal. Chocolatey.
There are some incredible coffees built around that classic profile.
This isn't one of them.
Our new Sumatra Bener Meriah Lychee Co-Fermented Typica is bright, aromatic and remarkably fruit-forward.
In the cup, we're finding jammy sweetness, delicate florals, unmistakable lychee and an elegant black tea finish.
It is one of those coffees that immediately gets your attention on the cupping table.
And the story of how those flavours got there is just as interesting as the coffee itself.
High in the Mountains of Aceh
This coffee comes from Bener Meriah, located in the highlands of Aceh at the northern end of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Coffee here grows at approximately 1,300–1,400 metres above sea level in rich volcanic soils and a lush tropical environment.
Aceh has a long and important history with coffee, but its production model is traditionally quite different from many of the farms we work with elsewhere in the world.
Coffee is commonly produced by thousands of smallholder farmers before being collected and consolidated for processing.
Central Sumatera Coffee is doing something different.
Meet Central Sumatera Coffee
Central Sumatera Coffee, or CSC, was founded in 2015 by Enzo Sauqi Hutabarat.
CSC operates its own coffee estates, including approximately 100 hectares in Bener Meriah.
Having control over the farm gives the team the ability to manage varieties, harvesting and processing independently.
More importantly, it gives them room to experiment.
They can separate individual lots and explore different fermentation and processing techniques while carefully monitoring how those decisions ultimately affect flavour.
This particular Typica lot is a great example.
So, What Exactly Is a Lychee Co-Ferment?
Let's start with an important distinction.
When we say this coffee tastes like lychee, we're not simply using "lychee" as a tasting descriptor.
Lychee is actually part of the fermentation process.
After the coffee cherries are harvested, they're placed into nylon bags for approximately 16 hours. This allows the cherries to soften while their naturally occurring sugars continue to develop.
The cherries are then depulped and transferred into fermentation tanks.
This is where things get interesting.
Yeast and powdered dried lychee fruit are introduced into the fermentation tanks with the coffee.
The coffee and lychee ferment together.
Following fermentation, the coffee is patio-dried until it reaches approximately 35% moisture and then undergoes the wet-hulling process traditionally associated with Sumatra before completing its final drying.
It's a fascinating combination of modern fermentation experimentation and traditional Sumatran processing.
But Does It Actually Taste Like Lychee?
Yes.
And you don't have to search very hard for it.
When we cupped this coffee, the profile we landed on was:
Jammy and floral with notes of lychee and black tea.
The lychee is distinctive and aromatic, but what makes the coffee particularly interesting is everything surrounding it.
There is a jammy fruit quality that gives the cup sweetness and depth. Delicate florals lift the aromatics, while the black tea character adds structure and a clean, elegant finish.
We've chosen to roast it at Roast Level 1, our lightest roast level, to preserve as much of that fruit, floral character and complexity as possible.
Are Co-Fermented Coffees Still Coffee?
This is where things get interesting.
Co-fermentation is creating plenty of conversation throughout the specialty coffee world.
Traditionally, when we describe a coffee as tasting like blueberry, peach, jasmine or chocolate, those ingredients haven't actually been added to the coffee. They're sensory descriptors we use to communicate flavours and aromas naturally created through variety, terroir, fermentation, processing and roasting.
Co-fermented coffees introduce another variable.
Fruit, spices, yeasts or other ingredients may be deliberately introduced during fermentation to influence the final sensory profile.
For us, transparency matters.
If lychee was intentionally used during fermentation, we want you to know that.
That's why we're calling this coffee exactly what it is:
Lychee Co-Fermented.
We're not trying to hide the process. In fact, we think understanding it makes tasting the coffee even more interesting.
Tradition Meets Experimentation
One of the things we've always loved about coffee is that there is still so much to discover.
We've travelled to coffee-producing countries around the world and spent decades cupping coffees, meeting producers and learning how decisions made at origin ultimately show up in your cup.
Sometimes we're looking for an exceptional example of tradition.
Other times, something completely unexpected gets our attention.
This coffee did exactly that.
It takes Typica grown high in the mountains of Aceh, combines it with Sumatra's traditional wet-hulling process, and introduces an innovative lychee co-fermentation along the way.
The result doesn't taste like the Sumatra you may already know.
It's jammy. It's floral. It's unmistakably lychee. And it finishes with the elegance of black tea.
Sometimes the most interesting coffees are the ones that challenge what we think an origin is supposed to taste like.
We think this is one of them.
Indonesia · Sumatra Bener Meriah
Lychee Co-Fermented Typica
Floral and tropical, with notes of lychee and vanilla
Roast Level 1
Consciously Chosen • Responsibly Purchased • Carefully Roasted
