Ijen Coffee History.

Is Javanese coffee the forerunner of the majority of coffee in Europe, Central America and South America?

It all started in the 16th century, more precisely in 1686 until 1696 when Nicholas Witsen, a mayor of Amsterdam ordered the VOC commander on the Malabar coast, Adrian Van Ommen to bring coffee beans from Malabar, India to the "Kedawoeng" area near Batavia (now Jakarta).
The coffee seeds were tested for the first time on the private land of the VOC governor general Willem Van Outhoorn in the area now known as the "Pondok Kopi" East Jakarta.
The results of the first harvest, coffee samples were immediately sent to Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam and the results from the biologists there were amazed by the quality of Javanese coffee because according to them the quality and taste of Javanese coffee surpassed coffee they had ever known before.
So that scientists immediately sent samples of Java coffee seeds to various botanical gardens in Europe (including the royal botanical gardens of King Louis XIV) and the seeds were also spread by the French in their colonies to be cultivated, including Central America and South America, because of this. appears the term "a cup of java" in the western world.
However, during the next harvest season, this garden failed due to floods and earthquakes.

In 1699 Henricus Zwaardecroon returned to bring coffee seeds and planted them in several highlands in the Dutch East Indies and this was the forerunner of Arabica coffee in all coffee plantations of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) including the highlands of Mount Ijen.
Since then, American and European traders have recognized that the "Besoeki" area is now the slopes of Mount Ijen which has an altitude of 1,000-1,800masl as a producer of Arabica coffee with the best quality in East Java and is the largest producer of Arabica coffee in Java and dominates as much as 85%. from Arabica coffee production on the island of Java, because of that Ijen coffee has the nickname "Java Coffee".
Until the 18th century, Ijen Coffee (Java Coffee) was believed to be one of the best coffees and was part of the Coffee-Blend Classic Mocha-Java (Mocha-Java is the result of blending coffee from the city of Al Mukha in Yemen with Javanese Coffee).
After Indonesia's independence in 1950, the management of coffee plantations was taken over by the Indonesian government and some of the plantation land was also distributed to the people and the plantations owned and managed by the people were called "People's Plantations".
Then they formed several Ijen coffee management organizations in an integrated manner to improve the living standards of the surrounding community.
More than a century of development and journey of Ijen coffee is known by the wider community and even to foreign countries and thanks to the development of agribusiness and collaboration with the government, organizations, farmers and the coffee community, the quality of Ijen coffee is getting better, even domestic and foreign consumers consider this Ijen coffee as "Origin Coffee" And willing to pay higher prices for Ijen coffee.

Before Alfa Jaya Indonesia was born.

In 2009, Fuad was a young man from Banyuwangi who migrated to the island of Bali and became a tour guide there, after several years in the tourism world, Fuad married a woman from the slopes of Mount Ijen, Banyuwangi.
Then in 2016 they established a wholesale company for mobile phone accessories and marketed their products throughout Bali and 3 districts in East Java.
But unfortunately in 2020, during the pandemic, the business had to close completely because in Bali a lockdown was imposed for almost 1 year and there was no clarity regarding the economic recovery in Bali.
In the end, Fuad returned to his wife's hometown on the slopes of Mount Ijen.
Here Fuad met Mr. Andi, he is the head of a coffee organization on the slopes of Mount Ijen.
Mr. Andi then introduced me to coffee and told me a lot about his activities and the work of the people around him.
There are some very interesting stories, very inspiring and touching my heart that were told by him that until now make me always remember.
When Mr. Andi was elected as the head of the coffee organization in his village, his parents advised him,
"Son, as the head of the organization you have a big responsibility towards society and the sustainability of coffee itself, you have to think about how the organization's coffee production increases, how their income and welfare also increases, how the coffee production area also increases and maintains and improves coffee quality.
Meanwhile, the coffee organization managed by Mr. Andi only focuses on specialty coffee, which incidentally takes longer, costs more and has less quantity and less market.
But Mr andi can do his job very well and work closely with some local coffee shop entrepreneurs.
However, when the pandemic hit, many of his coffee shop partners closed their outlets, causing Andi's income to drop drastically.
Since then Fuad decided to help him in an effort to improve the income of Mr. Andi and his organization by joining them.
For several months in 2020 we conducted market research, improved our coffee plantations to organic and improved agroforesty systems, we also brought in professional coffee processing experts from Central Java and built business relationships with coffee organizations and platforms abroad.
In 2021 we made a special license for coffee marketing abroad under the name Alfa Jaya Indonesia.
After experimentation and several attempts to improve quality with a team of professional processors have been successful, we confidently send our coffee samples to several countries in Europe including Switzerland, Norway, France, Germany and the Netherlands and produce an average SCA score of 85-88.
And we were lucky to immediately get a positive response from Algrano (by Mrs. Elisa Blaich) and get an offer to open orders for the following year's harvest.
And finally, for the first time in 2022, Alfa Jaya Indonesia's collaboration with Algrano was realized together.
And here we are the first and only one in Algrano as a seller and producer of genuine Ijen Java Coffee whose coffee comes from Mount Ijen.

We hope to follow in the footsteps of the VOC in introducing Ijen coffee throughout Europe and America and continue the "a cup of java" tradition to all loyal Algrano customers.

Hopefully our story can inspire coffee lovers and be able to introduce Javanese coffee to Europe well.

Thank you very much. 

Warm Regards, 
Fuad Fahmi
Alfa Java Coffee (Alfa JC) From Indonesia.