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The coffee that crosses every Tuesday
For thirty years, robusta from Sumarni's smallholding has travelled to the old coffee shops of Singapore.
- Entrant
- Sumarni
- Coffee trader
- Lampung
- Submitted
- 2026-01-12
At four in the morning the plot is still dark, but Sumarni is already counting sacks. Every Tuesday a truck collects her harvest for Panjang, and a ship carries it to Singapore.
"My first buyer was a Singaporean, in 1994," she says. "He told me my coffee was too bitter. I told him coffee ought to have convictions."
Her granddaughter now studies food science in Bogor and plans to open a roastery. A chain that began with a single sack now supports three generations.