bandung hotels, tourism and travel

Saturday, 12 January 2008 13:29

The founder of "Koffie Fabriek Aroma" at 78 years ago is Tan Houw Sian.  Before he started the bussiness in 1930, he had worked for a Dutch coffee producer.  In that decades, coffee bussiness competitions was centered on South American countries, Britain and Holland.  And the Dutchman had massive plantations in Indonesia.

Nowadays, Kopi Aroma (coffee aroma) bussiness is running by Widya Pratama, the only son of Tan Houw Sian, since he at 23.  Widya produces coffee just the way his father did, supervises every pack of the coffee and regulary inspect the coffee plantations in a number of different parts of the country (with total of 45 hectares in acre). The beans store at the barn for between two and eight years before it roasted , it aims to lower acidity of the beans, and the ammount of caffeine.  The low acid levels in the long-maturing coffee make the coffee to reduce the risks of somebody who have trouble with stomach that normal coffees can produce.

What make this coffee fabric special is they still use traditional method of processing coffee bean, from the raw one until ready to serve. Widya is also very friendly, and he will gladly take you to a tour to his coffee warehouse, while explaning the whole process of processing the coffee bean.

Inside his mini shop, you will also find several coffee grinding machine, the oldest one was dated 1900. Those machines are well maintained, still working and free from dust.  The grinder was made by American Hobart, although there is also a German model produced as recently as 1930.  The roasters were made in 1936, it fueled by rubber wood from old non-productive trees.
The coffee roasted for two hours to full perfection, without any additive or chemicals.