Papua New Guinea Okapa

This is an Eastern Highlands province coffee, which is where the best Papua New Guinea coffee tends to comes from. This mill is called Namugo and the region is locally known as Okapa. This is a microlot that was handpicked by the mill owner and set aside to be sold at a premium. Microlots are largely unheard of out of Papua New Guinea before now, so this was an exciting new direction for coffee being exported from the island.

The light roasts are fruity -- mango and orange, with hops and a little chocolate in the aftertaste. You really don't have to take it very dark. A couple degrees darker than a natural processed bean, but a roasting curve similar to a Kenya is going to get you right where you want to be. If you get any vegetal tastes, you're too light. You can also take it to the 2nd cracks, you lose the sweetness and the fruit, but it's a nice full bodied medium roast with a little earthiness and some savory/herbal tastes to make it interesting. However, you can also roast Papua New Guineas dark -- very dark -- and given the current Sumatra shortage, there may be a lot of that happening this year. You end up with a smoky, earthy, tobacco, full bodied coffee that could pass as a Sumatra Mandheling if you weren't thinking about it too closely.

USA arrival: February 2018