Coffees bearing the Sigri name are grown at a minimum of 1550 MASL. Sigri Coffees are washed Arabica coffees, and undergo a rigorous wet factory process. Quality Control begins in the field; each and every coffee cherry is hand-picked, carefully checked for uniformity, and must be red and fully ripe. This attention to detail when picking the coffee cherry allows for the correct balance of sugar and acid within the cherry. The selected cherry is then pulped on the day of picking which is more rare in Papua New Guinea and the greater Indonesian region. The vast majority of coffee beans exported from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are comprised of cherry that is aggregated from thousands of smallholder farmers who sell their cherry the cherry buyers who then turn around and sell this to mills. This lack of control over the picking, the time between picking and de-pulping, and the rest of the processing is why Indonesian and PNG green coffee beans are often not traceable and the quality often fails to meet American specialty coffee market standards.
All green coffee goes through a certain amount of fermentation regardless of if it is a washed, honey, or natural processed coffee. At Sigri Estate, this process takes place over a period of three days and is devided every 24 hours by a washing – but unlike other green coffees coming out of PNG or other parts of Indonesia, the Sigri process follows this by total immersion in water for an additional day. After the 24 hours of submersion, the green coffee goes through a careful conditioning of 21 days followed by hulling, grading, color sorting and finally hand sorting. Our Kula process coffees require double color-sorts and double hand-sorts. Each of these steps combined with rigorous quality control before picking produces some of the best green coffee beans from Papua New Guinea.
A fermentation process follows, a period of three days broken every 24 hours by washing – but unlike most other coffees, the Sigri process follows this by total immersion in water for a further day, which creates a superior coffee. Careful conditioning of 21 days is followed by hulling, grading, color sorting and finally hand sorting. This, combined with rigorous quality control before packing, produces one of the best coffees from Papua New Guinea.
All grades are continuously sample-roasted and cupped both at the estate level and by our quality control team in Chicago. This provides a final check on the green bean quality during processing, before shipment, and upon landing at our US warehouses.
Location: Wahgi Valley, Western Highlands
Altitude: 1550 – 1600 meters above sea level
Soil type: Volcanic
Shade trees:Albiza, Casuarina, Old-growth trees
Rainfalls year: 2200mm
Ave temp: 24°C
Crop period: April to October
Kula Processing Method
While we aren’t the only ones importing green coffee from Papua New Guinea, we are the only importers with our own Kula processing method. The Kula processing method is comprised of raised-bed drying, two rounds of color sorting, and two rounds of hand sorting. This results in a total of six stages of sorting after the parchment has been dried. This process includes destoning, screen size grading, desometric sorting, double color sorting, and finally double hand sorting. Floaters are also sorted out in two different stages of the wet process. This level of rigorous sorting results in a clean and crisp cup!
Flagship Papua New Guinea Green Coffee Beans
While Sigri and Bunum Wo estates are our the flagship estates where the highest scoring coffees are grown and processed, our producer-partners in PNG also own and manage Kindeng Estate. Each estate maintains their own wet and dry mills and follows the same processing guidelines. All estates are located in the Waghi Valley, though land plots are different and elevations vary slightly. We are happy to source any of these coffee and samples can be arranged at any time. If you are interested in learning more about our green coffee offerings from Papua New Guinea or any other origin, reach out to us.
Kula AA
Our Kula AA green coffee is an Estate-grown coffee. It is sorted by a size 18 screen, double color-sorted, and double hand-sorted. This coffee tastes of red apple, dark chocolate, a hint of floral, tamarind, and sweet roasted carrot.
Kula Peaberry
The Kula Peaberry green coffee is generally about 6% of the total green coffee crop and is a higher density coffee. As a Kula Coffee, our PNG peaberry coffee is sorted by a 4.5 long-slot screen, double color-sorted, and double hand-sorted. In the cup you will taste sweet milk chocolate, strawberry rhubarb, and lemon, with a complex syrupy body and lush mouthfeel.
PSC AX
The PSC AX stands for Premium Smallholder Crop. This coffee is purchased from smallholders who pulp, wash, and dry their green coffees. Once purchased, dry milling is finished on the Kindeng Estate. You can expect a full-bodied coffee with notes of melon, caramel, and black cherry. This coffee has a forward sweetness and acidity.