GLOBAL SOLOK RADJO COFFEE

The cold wind of Gumanti blasts the steam a cup of Arabica coffee on the table. People dissolve the coffee while sharpened, moisturizing the cool atmosphere in the hill. The cafe surrounded by the coffee garden was deliberately opened for coffee lovers and nature.

The area located in Nagari Aia Cold, the District of Lembah Gumanti, Solok Regency, West Sumatra went to become one of the new coffee centra left Solok Radjo name.

Located at a height of 1,500 meters above sea level, with a mileage of 60 kilometers from the city of Padang, it is now known as one of the leading special coffee types producing from Ranah Minang that penetrates the United States market.

The beginning of coffee revival in the area breakout initiative of a number of young children who choose home villages and want to contribute to building dragons. They are Alphadrian Syah, Teuku Firmansyah and a number of colleagues.

Alfadrian or familiarly called Adi initiated the establishment of Solok Radjo Cooperative that facilitates the purchase of coffee from farmers, guiding farmers to cultivate coffee professionally, conducting proper post harvest processing to market it.

Now not less than 18 tons of Arabica coffee is produced by Solok Radjo cooperative farmers every year, the results of 168 thousand coffee rods that have been planted.

Solok Radjo’s arabian coffee planted in the area originated from the variety of Utang and Kartika cigarars.

From a sense, Solok Radjo arabika coffee rose the leaves after the cicip test (cupping test) by a coffee flavor tester or Q Grader on 2013 with the above 85 values.

In 2014 Solok Radjo coffee came back as it gained high scores on the test of the vinegar in Thailand and two consecutive years in 2016-2017 returns superior to the test of the cicip in Melbourne Australia.

The character of taste is recognized by the Q Grader of coffee flavor builder so that it gets recommendations to continue to be developed and worth marketing to overseas.

The most prominent taste of Solok Radjo Coffee is lemon, chocolate to sweet taste at the tip of the tongue so that to enjoy it is not necessary to mix sugar.

Since 2014 Solok Radjo Coffee marketing is divided by two locals from Sumatra, Java to Bali and export markets, the United States, Japan, Korea and Australia.

To streamline the Solok Radjo Cooperative farmers prepare up to seven buds of plant resources who serve the farmers to research.

Not only that to make sure the post harvest processing is running either it forms a strict control team overseeing each stage starting from the sunbathing to become “green bean†or the ready-to-distribute coffee beans.

Based on data from Horticulture Food Plant and Sumbar Plantation to 2022 there are 27 thousand hectares of coffee land in the area consisting of 17 thousand hectares and 10 thousand hectares of arabians.

In the last two years of arabian coffee in Sumbar grows rapidly even based on the recognition of coffee taste sculptor there is less if there is no coffee from Sumbar

Coffee has become a flagship commodity for most people in a number of regions in Indonesia, it is not excluded in Nagari Air Cold, Solok Regency, West Sumatra that has proven to penetrate international coffee markets.

Photo and Text: Iggoy El Fitra