Timor Eratoi Coffee

This is a Washed process coffee from the Eratoi washing station in the Letefoho region of East Timor.

Led by Simao Pedro de Deus, the Eratoi group, with their rich coffee-growing heritage, creates exceptional speciality coffee with bold flavours and remarkable complexity. These dedicated farmers nurture their coffee trees under the shade of Ai-Samtuku trees at 1800 masl, enhancing the sweetness of their forest-grown, wild-harvested beans. Join their flavourful and resilient journey.

The lead farmer of the cooperative is Simao Pedro de Deus. The varietals of coffee they farm are Typica and Timor Hybrid.

Timorese coffee is truly wild and organically grown, a fact that Francisco is incredibly proud of. "We work hard to produce the best quality coffee, and although the methods we use are time-consuming, they’re worthwhile. We believe that Mother Nature has provided us with the best conditions to grow coffee and we now have better processing facilities which have brought our coffee to a quality that can compete"

We're sure you'll enjoy this flavourful coffee from Timor.

Coffee Facts

Farmers / Producer - Simao Pedro de Deus with Eratoi Cooperative (25 farmers)

Agro method - Forest-grown, *organic

Region: Eratoi Letefoho

Altitude - 1800m above sea level

Variety - Typica, Timor Hybrid

Process Type - Washed, African bed drying

*This coffee is grown organically but due to not yet being certified, we can't mention this on the label.

Brewing & Flavour Notes

This will depend slightly on the method of brewing, so please refer to our flavour map image for our general flavour description. 

As a pour-over (using a V60 or home filter machine) you’ll taste a complex array of dried fruits like raisins and dates. There are also specific tastes of red apple, milk choc, and toffee. A very sweet acidity in this coffee is recognisable, but the rich date, resin-like flavour is the most prominent flavour. This coffee shows off some very pleasant spice and floral notes which are typical of very high-altitude coffees, they develop as the coffee cools.

As an espresso, we recommend an 18.5g dry weight to a 37-40g wet weight. The high sweetness and body with the rich date flavour make a very yummy espresso that blends well with cow's milk, but also with oat milk. You need to get the extraction very precise to bring out all the floral notes, but using the range above within 27 seconds should show this very well.

History

Situated in South East Asia with Australia to the South, Timor-Leste holds the unenviable accolade of being one of the few countries in the world to have been both colonised and annexed; colonised by Portugal from 1600s to 1975 and annexed by Indonesia from 1975 to 1999. Having finally gained independence in 2002, Timor-Leste is the world’s second youngest nation-state and still finding its feet in the geopolitical world of the 21^st century. Coffee was introduced to the island by the Portuguese and went on to become the country’s leading export by the 1900s, however, the industry suffered greatly during the years of Indonesian annexation when the sector was largely ignored.

It was in 1995, towards the end of Indonesian rule in Timor-Leste, that Francisco de Deus inherited his farm from his grandparents. Nestled high in the mountains of the central highlands of the country in the district of Ermera, conditions are ideal for coffee harvesting with warm, blue skies during the day and cool evenings at night allowing for consistent growing and processing conditions. Francisco recalls, ‘I always knew that I would one day return to work in Letefoho to work on the family farm and it was not long after I took over harvesting responsibilities from my grandfather that more coffee exporters came to Timor-Leste. This motivated many farmers to once again look to coffee as a potential sustainable source of income.

Partners

Bloss has partnered with Karst Organics to bring this coffee to you here in the UK. We're mega impressed with the dedication of Karst and have really enjoyed working with them since 2020. 

Karst Organics were introduced to Francisco de Deus (a third-generation coffee farmer and head of the Rotutu cooperative) through a mutual friend in 2017. It didn’t take them long to fall in love with the farming community of the region of Letefoho and even less time to fall in love with the delicious coffee that Francisco and his family were producing. Their continued work has helped them grow their relationships and hense the joy of now working with Simao Pedro de Deus and the Eratoi Cooperative of 25 farmers.

This will be Karst's fourth consistent year of working together with the farmers of the Eratoi group. Being located at an altitude of 1800m, the coffee grows amongst the coffee forests surrounded by the imposing Ai-Samtuku (Albizia) shade trees. Underneath these trees, the coffee is provided with a good balance of sun and shade in which to grow and mature slowly, allowing for optimum sweetness when harvested and processed. All the members of the Eratoi group follow the same processing methods, ensuring that only the ripest cherries are picked and processed with the utmost attention. Carefully fermented for between 40-42 hours and dried on raised beds to an ideal moisture content of 10-12%.