Papua New Guinea has long been relegated to “blender coffee” status for many in the American specialty coffee industry. This is for a variety of reasons including supply chain challenges at origin, the limited pool of quality-focused producers, and, notably, the lack of exposure to great PNG for many roasters. All of this created a sort of viscous cycle of where the limited supply of high quality PNG created a lack of demand for high quality PNG which, in turn, created a lack of interest for producers to create high quality PNG coffees.
Benchmark focuses on representing the best of PNG, produced with higher processing standards by people who are committed to quality. As we have found growing interest in our top grade PNGs over the years, our produce-partners’ interest in experimenting has also grown.
Four years ago, our partners at Sigri Estate began identifying some of the different varieties (strains) of coffee found on their land. While the predominant variety was known to be Typica, there were other varieties, found in smaller quantities, that were aggregated together with the Typica in processing. One of these varieties was Maragogype, the “elephant coffee bean” believed to be a spontaneous mutation of Typica. Our partners began propagating the Maragogype and, three years ago, this variety was planted in a microlot of its very own!
Now, we are thrilled to announce a very limited first-run of “Big Red,” as it has been named.” We believe this is one of the only true microlots in the entire origin and, as it is composed of a single prized variety, we feel that this is exceedingly rare. As only eight bags are being produced this season, we are excited to showcase this coffee over the coming months alongside a small group of roaster-partners. As this offering continues to develop, we hope to add this to our seasonal availability in the coming years.
With high quality varieties, high elevations, good soil content, and temperate climates PNG has a lot of potential. Much of this potential is ultimately unrealized, as poor picking, poor processing, and a lack of interest squander what could have been. We are grateful to work with producers who continue to push quality and we are proud to offer these coffees to our roaster-partners.
We hope that Big Red is well-received and we hope that it works to increase the presence of PNG in the specialty market. We love riding along on the journey of Papua New Guinea, as recognition grows for this origin and the potential that lies ahead. We feel that Big Red is a great representation of this journey and we are honored to help tell its story!
Interested in tasting this unique microlot green coffee? Follow this link to contact us!