Green Coffee Beans- PNG "Border" B 1kg

"Border" B Grade

Country: Papua New Guinea

Region: Jimi River Valley, Simbu, Central Highlands

Processing: Fully Washed

Variety: Typica and Bourbon

Altitude: 1600-2000m

Cup Score: 83

Cherry, Brown Sugar, Sweet Chocolate. Notes of Cocoa and Grapefruit, Green Grape finish. A versatile blender.

Border coffee is a parchment buying operation in the Simbu province, in the Simbu/Jiwaka border region of Nondigul, on the Wahgi/Sepik dividing range to the north of Mt Wilhelm.

Producers range from Simbai, to the North west (where the parchment needs to be flown out), and as far south as Mt Elimbari.

This particular coffee is grown by smallholders from the Kol region of the Jimi River Valley. This region is just over in the Sepik side of the dividing range, where the coffee is harvested, hand pulped and sundried before been carried out for several Kilometres to the access roads, where it can be loaded onto 4wheel drive vehicles to be transported to the dry factory near Mingende on the Highlands Highway.

The Jimi river area and especially the Kol region is Mountainous and relies almost exclusively on Coffee as its main economic activity. But this is hindered by the difficulty in maintaining the access roads in this steep terrain.

Coffee production in the Jimi River area was spontaneous, as a result of the success of the expansion of plantings in the Wahgi valley in the 1960s. When the indigenous farmers saw the value of coffee as an annual source of income, they took coffee seedlings from the Wahgi Plantations into the more remote areas. During this period of PNG growth, roads were being pushed into many of these areas which helped the growth. But, not all districts were fortunate and those plantings remained isolated from roads. In the case of these Kol district farmers the road was initially constructed but they require annual maintenance which can lead to periods of isolation.