Barudugul #DRFN-P07.08

Tasting Notes: Poached pear, soursop, chardonnay

Fragrance/Aroma: Tropical fruits, winey
Acidity: Rounded
Body: Juicy
Aftertaste: Winey, crisp

The fragrance opens with a blend of tropical fruit and wine-like aromatics, suggesting both ripeness and a lightly fermented character.

On the palate, the cup begins with the soft sweetness of poached pear, carrying a gentle, rounded acidity that provides structure without sharpness. This quickly transitions into the brighter, more tropical profile of soursop, adding a subtle tang and lifting the mid-palate. The body remains juicy and fluid, allowing the progression to feel seamless and continuous.

As the cup develops, the fruit tones taper into a finish reminiscent of Chardonnay − clean, lightly winey, and crisp. The aftertaste is brief but defined, leaving a refreshing impression with a restrained brightness.

This limited custom lot from Pak Hanif reflects a highly controlled, small-scale expression of West Java’s evolving approach to experimental processing. Grown in Tenjolaya’s Blok Barudugul, known for its cool elevations and fertile volcanic soils, this coffee sits within a broader regional shift away from traditional wet-hulled profiles toward cleaner, more articulate cup structures. West Java, particularly around Sunda and Bogor, has in recent years gained recognition for its willingness to adopt precision fermentation, improved cherry selection, and collaborative processing models.

This lot is the result of a collaboration between Hanif, Saninten Coffee as processing partner, and The Dancing Tongue Club as curator and conduit to specialty markets, underscoring a shared focus on pushing both quality and process transparency.

After determining the optimal harvest window, cherries were picked in June 2025, yielding just 13kg of cherry. Only fruit with an average sugar content of 17.5% Brix was selected, sorted, and cleaned, ensuring exceptional ripeness.

The processing protocol employs precision-controlled two-stage anoxic fermentation. First, cherries are inoculated with Pichia kluyveri, a yeast strain known for efficient mucilage degradation and cold tolerance, then sealed in polypropylene bags at below 19℃ for a minimum of 178 hours until reaching pH 3.8. This is followed by a second anoxic fermentation in vacuum-sealed bags within a dark, controlled-environment room for 264 hours, with all variables measured throughout to ensure consistency and microbial stability.

Drying was equally deliberate, conducted slowly over 30 days in a controlled drying house until optimal moisture content was achieved. The result is a coffee that represents both site and system: a precise, fermentation-driven profile layered onto the structural clarity increasingly associated with high-elevation West Java lots.

Sourced from: Direct (via @thekopitimes)
We paid: S$30.33/kg
Roasted cost: S$$49.69/kg

Moisture Content: 9.3%
Weight Loss: 10.2%
Agtron: W90.8 / G127.3 / △36.5