Its this time of year I love the most. Its always hot in Indonesia, but where I live the months of December through until the end of February are the monsoon months. The rain is tropically heavy, although not strictly the monsoon you see in movies (or in reality on the subcontinent). It rains here for about 2 hours everyday. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes the afternoon. Sometimes you strike it lucky and it rains both in the morning and the… Continue

There is something that is somewhat Colonial chic in drinking a coffee in a French Style Cafe on Beach Road in Singapore. The Cafe, Kafei Dian, is one of the many Singapore cafes that embraces a Parisian style approach to a cafe, fused with all things that are typically traditional Singaporean. The coffee is served in heavy white porcelain cups, complete with a ceramic Chinese Soup spoon for adding sugar. The coffee is Robusta, so it is very rare… Continue

In the village the streets are quiet and empty. It is a little after midday and the children are at school, the adults going about their daily routine in the fields higher up the slope of the volcano. The only noise is the occasional cackle of hens and a mournful mooing coming from the dairy sheds in the centre of the town. Sunlight filters through the canopy of taller trees, speckling the coffee grown below in a pleasant, clear half-light. The coffee… Continue

My fascination with lever espresso machines stretches way back to the time I saw my first real commercial machine, in Auckland in 1987. The machine in question was being used in what we Kiwi's would call a “Milk Bar” type coffee shop, in downtown Auckland City. The machine was a venerable Italian 2 grouper, complete with the then obligatory dome. I cant remember the type of machine, but I do remember it was not a machine where the dome was part… Continue

Crisis in coffee... or crisis in Tea?



In 10 years working with coffee growers around Indonesia, I have spent very little time in the tea plantations that carpet the highlands of Java. I have always assumed that as most of these are run by the Government or businessmen, then they would be more developed (in terms of infrastructure) than the thousands of small hold coffee growing villages… Continue