Indonesia is among the world’s top coffee producing and exporting countries. Most of production constitutes the lower quality robusta type. Indonesia is also famous for having a number of specialty coffees such as ‘kopi luwak’ (known as world’s the most expensive coffee) and ‘kopi Mandailing’. Regarding agricultural commodities, coffee is Indonesia’s fourth-largest foreign exchange earner palm oil, rubber and cocoa.
Coffee was introduced to the archipelago by the Dutch who initially planted coffee trees around their stronghold of Batavia but quickly expanded coffee production to the Bogor and Sukabumi regions in West Java in the 17th and 18th century. Indonesia proved to have a near ideal climate for coffee production, hence plantations were soon established on other parts of Java and on the islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi.
Today, Indonesia’s coffee plantations cover a total area of approximately 1.24 million hectares, 933 hectares of robusta plantations and 307 hectares of arabica plantations. More than 90 percent of total plantations are cultivated by small-scale growers. The bulk of Indonesia’s coffee bean production consists of the lower-quality robusta type. The higher quality arabica beans mostly come from South American countries such as Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador and Costa Rica. As such, the bulk of Indonesia’s coffee exports (roughly 80 percent) consist of robusta beans. Exports of processed coffee are only a small fraction of total Indonesian coffee exports.
Size: 1.905 million km²
Capital City: Jakarta
Population: 261.1 million
Languages: Bahasa Indonesia (official, modified form of Malay), English, Dutch, Javanese, other local dialects
Average farm size: Varies, between 1 hectare to 10 hectares
Annual production: 11.2 million bags
Bags exported annually: 6.6 million bags
Annual domestic consumption: 4.6 million bags
Growing regions: Robusta; Bengkulu (Sumatra), South Sulawesi, Lampung (Sumatra) and Java, Arabica; Aceh, Java, Sumatra
Varieties: 75% Robusta, 25% Arabica: Typica, Caturra, Bourbon, S-line Hybrids, Catimor, Tim Tim.
Processing Methods: Washed, Semi-washed, Natural
Bag Size: 60 kg
Harvest Period: Java; July to September, Sumatra; October to March
Shipment Period: Java; August to November, Sumatra; November to May