Eratoi is centrally located in the sub-district of Letefoho, where the coffee and our import parter Karst Organics partner-farmers are widely dispersed throughout a large area of land under the watchful eye of Timor-Leste’s most sacred mountain - Mount Ramelau. At an altitude of 1800masl, the Eratoi member’s coffee forests are all ideally located amongst the cooling shade trees, where the cherries are provided with a good balance of sun and shade, giving them the time needed to grow and mature slowly. With higher altitude comes marginally cooler temperatures, meaning that the cherries require a little more time to ripen. 

With the Eratoi group being one of Karsts longest partner farmer groups, they have continued to look for opportunities to expand further the different processing methods used to process their coffee and this will be the third year to process a natural coffee from Eratoi. With the consistent bold flavours coming from this group’s coffee, it makes perfect sense to build on this and offer a natural alongside the ever popular fully washed coffee which we have continued to offer year on year. By offering the members the opportunity to sell both their fully washed parchment and ripe red cherries, this allows them the chance to further increase their earning potential and gives them the autonomy to decide how to manage their income. 

The Eratoi group continue to be led by Simao Pedro de Deus (also Karst Organics’ field manager) who takes great pride in seeing the growth in support which Karst’s partner roasters have given to his community and urges him on to further promote the high standard of picking and processing required to meet the expectations of the international speciality market. Together with Karsts team, Simao checks every single bag of cherries from the Eratoi members and selects only the best quality cherries for this natural coffee which is processed at the centralised processing facility in Eratoi. The cherries are then sifted to remove any that are overly small and then washed and floated to remove any defects. They are then placed into sealed Ecotact bags for a 12 hour overnight anaerobic ferment, and the following morning, are then placed out to dry on raised drying beds. The drying was completed over two phases; the first phase saw the coffee cherries spread very thinly and dried in the sun, where the moisture came down from 68% to 25%. From this point, the coffee cherries were more deeply layered and for the next 20-25 days, were dried from 25% to 9.5% moisture. Once the optimum moisture level was reached, the cherries were then rested for 6 weeks before the final hulling process took place. 

Whilst all processing methods are labour intensive and time consuming, with continued changes in climate, natural processed coffee in particular needs much longer drying times in order to reach the right moisture level. During this years harvest, this natural lot took an average of 25 days of continuous drying, in comparison to around 10 days for fully washed coffees processed from the same group. This natural processed coffee does not disappoint, offering a deliciously juicy cup with red berry and hard candy notes.