"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

Without question, direct trade is fast becoming the future of coffee. Direct trade has a whole stack of benefits, including better prices for the growers, open lines of communication and, ultimately, higher quality coffees.

In November, I was fortunate enough to travel to Takengon, Sumatra, with Ben Bicknell and several other café owners and baristas from Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. Our objective was to visit several regions in Sumatra to view the coffee process first hand, cup the coffees from these different regions and choose our next season’s harvest.

Winding roads filled with pot holes, steep ascents and descents on the back of village motor bikes, hand picking cherries and drinking locally grown Robusta with local farmers — armed with a video camera and digital SLR camera, I set out to document our experiences.

This trip gave me an amazing insight into the coffee process, Sumatran culture and the important relationship that exists between the people and coffee in everyday life in Sumatra.

I want to give a special shout out to Reinhart and Danny from Gajah Mountain Coffee (our local contact and exporter) who hosted us for the week, showed us the farms and cooperatives and gave us the opportunity to create a direct trade agreement in these small farming regions. They have been consistently pushing the quality of coffee in Sumatra, despite encountering all kinds of hurdles related to politics and infrastructure. The end result is a win for both 5 Senses and the people of Sumatra from whom we purchase coffee — as well as for all of you who enjoy our Sumatran coffee!

I hope the video and photography from our trip gives you an insight deeper than any I could describe in words. Enjoy!

Direct Trade Sumatran ‘08’ from Five Senses Coffee on Vimeo.