WORLD TRIP 2010
Our base for a fairly short stay (10 days) in Bali was beautiful Ubud.
As well as a coffee shop, I also popped into a coffee plantation.
Ubud’s the sort of hazy, swooning spot ripe for watching the world pass by from a coffee shop. My kind of place. We took it fairly easy (it just felt like the right thing to do) and ended up popping in to most of Ubud’s cafes.
Tutmak is my favourite.
It’s a large place with an upstairs lounge and, downstairs, cushions for comfy cross-leggedness. Like many places in Ubud, it’s fairly “westernised”. Easily balanced out with more authentic experiences, such as roast suckling pig from Warung Ibu Oka, a show from one of Ubud’s dance troupes and trips into the countryside.
The coffee is from Bali and is roasted at Tutmak. The drinks are very nicely presented, with latte art on the lattes. The taste is quite different from any coffee I’ve had, and it’s great.
It’s also a very friendly place. Great for chilling out on hot days.
Bali might not be one of the first places that springs to mind for coffee production. Nearby Java (another of Indonesia’s islands) is perhaps better known. But tiny Bali exports robusta and arabica, and has an ace up its sleeve; the world famous “kopi luwak” coffee.
This is the coffee that’s pooed from a civet cat, selling for exceptionally high prices all around the globe. By reputation, it’s the best money can buy.
I visited a small kopi luwak plantation. The cat with the smart nose was present, if asleep and curled up in a corner. He or she hunts out coffee beans on the forest floor, sniffs out the good ones and eats them, shunning the rest. The beans emerge from the cat’s rear, with the crucial coffee bean still in tact.
The beans are cleaned (of course) and roasted. I was lucky enough to try a cup, which could cost up to 30 pounds in the UK. I was delighted to discover that it’s not over-hyped (well, not much). Truly delicious. Like any really good coffee, my tea-drinking gilfriend loved it without having to add sugar or milk! That’s the litmus test, surely.
I saw trees producing arabica and robusta, the two main varieties of coffee (arabica is the superior variety). Robusta trees are taller, arabica trees shorter.
Ripe raw coffee has a squidgy consistency (not what I was expecting).
Above: coffee on the tree
At the plantation, the beans are roasted in a metal dish above an open fire and constantly stirred. Then, separated into male and female (see below). I must admit I didn’t know that coffee beans had genders. I only wish I could remember the difference (that’ll teach me to write the blog entry two months late…).
A fascinating little trip. I’ll leave you with a few photos.
Above: beans are roasted, then separated into male and female.
Above: raw coffee beans, fallen from the tree. Right: piles of male, female and kopi luwak coffee beans.
Jalan Dewi Sita,
Ubud,
Bali,
Indonesia
