Orders are shipped every Monday, Thursday and Friday. Blends are roasted on Mondays and Fridays each week whilst single origins are roasted only on Wednesdays at this stage (due to batch size requirements).
Since 1920, Riverdale Estate has been a family owned business where three generations have worked to improve the quality of their coffee plants. The Farm is located in Eastern Ghat Mountains in Yercaud – South India. Prakashan Balaraman is a young and passionate coffee farmer who is challenging traditional coffee growing practices and processing in India.
In the last 10 years Riverdale Estate has been transformed with new modern farming practices like a state of art cupping lab, energy efficient pulping station(wet mill), drip irrigation for the plants, African style raised beds to dry all our coffee and temperature controlled storage room to store coffee beans post harvest The plantation sits at an altitude of 1450 meter above sea level where we grow Green tip Gesha, brown tip Gesha, SL9 and SL5B arabica varieties.
The Loam soil in these mountain ranges have a perfect mixture of clay, silt and sand to grow coffee and other crops like oranges, jackfruit & peppercorn. The estate has a natural water stream which flows throughout the year making it a very interesting place to cultivate coffee.
Only selective ripe cherries are hand picked by our trained pickers at Riverdale Estate. Quality picking = quality green beans this is in our DNA . Training our hand picker team on an ongoing basis and having quality control measure is the key to ensure coffee are picked at the optimum ripeness for different process.
Fruit development is a lengthly process understanding the maturation of the bean development on a weekly basis provides us the roadmap, the work starts from early on the seed development of the endosperm – how the seeds store protein and sucrose within its walls.
Coffee fruit ripen at different stages so our field manager starts the day by choosing which section of the farm is ready to be picked they do that by measuring the sugar content of the cherries with the help of brix meter, once they select the area in the farm we send the pickers to pick the cherries in the field. We invite our roasters community to visit our farm during harvest season (November – January) to experience first hand how the cherries are picked, processed and dried in the raised beds.
We sun dry the coffees in African style raised bed as it helps us to remove the excess water quickly and creates good air circulation for the coffee beans to dry evenly. Any defective or broken bean in the bed gets cleaned along the way. Every few hours coffee gets turned around by hand so all beans are exposed to the sun evenly. Part of the quality control we monitor the moisture loss every day with the help of the moisture meter and record all the data’s so we can maintain the consistency of every lot produced.
For naturals, honey, carbonic and anaerobic lots extra care is needed while drying in the bed. For the first 4 to 6 days coffees are dried in full sun and cherries are spread out evenly into thin layer so cherries dry evenly and the outer layer of the cherries are sealed properly. Coffees cherries are then moved into a part shade drying beds to slow the drying process for 20-25 days depending the process. Once the beans reaches between 10-13 % moisture we store the beans into a purpose build storage space where the humidity and temperature are monitored daily. All the lots processed are stored separately with the name tag where we record all the necessary information like when it was picked, drying conditions, lot size and processing information.
We sun dry the coffees in African style raised bed as it helps us to remove the excess water quickly and creates good air circulation for the coffee beans to dry evenly. Any defective or broken bean in the bed gets cleaned along the way. Every few hours coffee gets turned around by hand so all beans are exposed to the sun evenly. Part of the quality control we monitor the moisture loss every day with the help of the moisture meter and record all the data’s so we can maintain the consistency of every lot produced.
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Parami Village - Timor-Leste
Regular price$17.00
Save $-17.00
Cocoa powder, green apple and toffee.
Washing Station: Atsabe Wet Mill Region: Ermera Country: Timor-Leste Processing: Honey Elevation: 1,700 - 1,800m Variety: Hibrido de Timor, Moka, Typica Sourced Through: Raw Material ---
The Coffee Sector Is About To Become Timor-Leste’s Most Vital Export.
Having found its sovereignty in 2002, Timor-Leste is the world’s youngest country. As the country finds stability, the development of the agriculture sector is rapidly becoming an important pillar for the structural transformation of the country’s economy. Timor-Leste currently faces enormous economic upheaval, as its oil reserves begin to run dry.
As part of the wider development of Timor-Leste’s agriculture, the country’s coffee industry is set to bolster the following:
The provision for sufficient livelihoods, employment, and income; The enhancement of food security and nutrition; The improvement to the sustainability of natural resources and An increase in resilience to climactic shocks
The importance of coffee to thousands of smallholder families cannot be overstated. Approximately 77,000 households depend on coffee for income, impacting approximately 37.6% of all households. A 2011 survey of over 800 households (5,300 individuals) conducted in Ermera municipality/district reported that more than half of the households surveyed rely on coffee for the majority of their income.
More Than A Quarter Surveyed In Ermera Stated That They Received More Than 90% Of Their Income From Coffee.
In Timor-Leste, Raw Material's work is currently focussed namely in the municipality of Ermera. One of thirteen municipalities in the country, it is home to the largest coffee production volumes, as well as the second highest rate of poverty, and lowest average annual spend per capita. These three points reinforce the necessity of RM's efforts being localised to Ermera.
In Ermera 57% Of The Municipality’s Population Live Below The National Poverty Line.
RM established their Ermera HQ in Suco Baboe Kraik in 2018. The village chiefs, neighbourhood leaders, and coffee farmers from all across the countryside met with them at the new community wet mill in Atsabe, to plan a new future through access to the specialty coffee market.
A few months after breaking ground in Baboe Kraik, they had taught in-depth 5-day training courses, produced a local-situation-specific 11-part video guide on coffee production best practices, and won the national production competition; setting a new record for coffee quality.
Coffee Has The Potential To Rapidly Improve Livelihoods In Ermera.
"The central hub for processing the cherry of the producers we work with across the Ermera municipality [is the Astabe wet mill]. Sitting at 1400 MASL, the wet mill has served not only as a place to purchase, process, and dry cherry, but as a meeting point for the village chiefs and neighbourhood leaders, and Raw Material.
Expanding the reach of specialty coffee as a viable option for profitable returns includes the importance of training. The Atsabe Wet Mill has successfully served as the hub for training courses in both cultivation, picking, and processing for local producers."
- Suco Baboe Kraik Atsabe, Ermera Municipality
This particular coffee is a honey processed lot from the suco of Parami. Cherry from Parami, and the nearby 1,800 masl neighbourhoods Motalala and Koileki, is collected daily and processed at the Atsabe wet mill in Baboe Kraik.
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