In the corner of his house on stilts, Hermawan, 41, took out a 1-meter-square wooden box that is over 100 years old. Not much of the carved design remains and the paint has begun to peel off.
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In the corner of his house on stilts, Hermawan, 41, took out a 1-meter-square wooden box that is over 100 years old. Not much of the carved design remains and the paint has begun to peel off. However, for him, the box containing white robes and haj items is a source of excitement to process the family\'s coffee inheritance.
"This box belonged to my grandfather, Haji Syafií, to go to the Holy Land. I’m not sure of the exact time, around the late 1900s. He boarded a ship for three months, financed from the coffee business," said Hermawan at his home in Liwa, Lampung, February 2018.
Haji Syafií died a long time ago. However, his coffee plantation is still managed by Hermawan. The plantation doesn’t only produce arabica coffee now, but also robusta coffee with many clones. Even though the situation is no longer the same, for him it is no problem. If his grandfather was able to make the pilgrimage on the back of arabica coffee, he has a similar dream with robusta.
The story of a successful farmer who was finally able to go on haj depicts the beautiful past of Lampung coffee. Initially, coffee planting there was dominated by the arabica type, while robusta came later.
Probonegoro in his book Lampoeng Tanah Lan Tijangipoen (1940) wrote that arabica coffee began to be planted in the 1850s. It began almost at the same time as the development of pepper cultivation.
At that time the arabica coffee supplied by the Dutch East Indies was the world\'s best. Probonegoro said that there were reports from the residents of Lampung that 4 million trees were planted there in the 1860s. This was not long before Syafií left for the Holy Land. Harvesting was still done by collecting ripe coffee beans and those that had fallen from the tree.
The method of collecting coffee beans on the ground has now developed so that we can now produce civet coffee. "If in the old days the civet droppings containing coffee were taken from the forest, now we can collect them from cages, which guarantees cleanliness and health," said Gunawan Supriadi, 49, a civet coffee farmer in Liwa.
However, the glory of coffee did not last long. Lampung coffee was put to the test. An outbreak of leaf disease killed almost all the coffee plantations in Java. The disaster severely disturbed the coffee market. The catastrophe was followed by the eruption of Mount Krakatau in 1883, destroying the coffee plantations. Lampung coffee glory was washed out.
In the early 1900s Lampung coffee cultivation woke up again. At that time, the trees planted were robusta. In the same period, the Dutch government also boosted robusta planting because it was considered more resistant against leaf disease.
Coffee planting was spreading to mountainous areas. Most coffee was planted at an altitude of less than 800 meters above sea level. Besides Lampung, robusta was also grown in Toraja, Malang, Flores and Bali. Robusta plants lived for a long time. Lampung is now even developing into a center of robusta cultivation, trade and coffee industry.
Vice chairman of domestic affairs of the Indonesian Coffee Exporters Association of Lampung, Teddy Suryana, said coffee produced in Bengkulu, South Sumatra and Jambi was partly exported through Lampung. Coffee from these areas is called Lampung coffee. Coffee prices in Sumatra are based on the price in Lampung. Most of the coffee is shipped from Panjang Port.
What is unique is that robusta is not just a source of livelihood. Robusta seems to have become a mirror of the people of Lampung. The way robusta multiplies, for example, is called polyclonal, which requires many robusta clones in the plantations, similar to the diversity of the Lampung community. There are about 27 robusta clones that have spread throughout Lampung.
With a variety of stories and capital, Hermawan believes that sooner or later, robusta will shine just like the arabica coffee owned by his grandfather. He has started to promote the development of robusta coffee by participating in many coffee exhibitions. He also promotes civet coffee with various methods of brewing. Finally, he managed to produce robusta coffee that is not bitter, but rich in taste. It does not only attract the interest of the community of Lampung, local robusta is also popular around the world.