Java is one of the many islands that make up the country of Indonesia. Dutch traders traveled there and acquired coffee and coffee trees, which they traded throughout Southeast Asia, spreading to seed to other islands now famous for their beans, like Bali and Sumatra.
A Brief History:
This island where this brand of coffee originates from is the fourth largest island in Indonesia and also shares its capital of Jarkata. According to an article from Driftaway Coffee, the trees that produced the coffee on this island were damaged in the 1800s by coffee leaf rust. This forced the Indonesians to substitute a lot of their Javan plants with liberica and robusta coffees. These are more resistant to the leaf rust, but at the cost of the flavor, which was diminished. We’ll never know just how good Java used to be!
Interesting Java island Trivia:
The island of Java is a melting pot of various cultures among four different provinces: West, East, Central, and Banten. Did you also know that Java was at the center of indomitable Hindu-Buddhist empires between the ‘30s and ‘40s? It is also the driving force behind the Indonesian government, controlling its politics and economics.
Java was originally formed by a series of volcanic eruptions, and is now the 13th largest island in the world. With roughly 145 million civilians, it’s no wonder the island became the center for this saporous Java coffee production, currently being the fourth largest producer of coffee in the world. It also helps that the island has a naturally tropical environment for the trees to grow in, ranging from rainforests to coastal rocky cliffs. Its climate generally is either a wetland or a dry savanna.
There are six different categories of the coffee arabica species grown in Indonesia: Typica, Hibrido de Timor, Linie S, Ethiopian Lines, Caturra Cultivars, and Catimar Lines, all introduced to the Indonesian from countries like the Netherlands and Japan.
Stop in at Keys Coffee Co. for the perfect cup of Mocha Java!
