A booster for Arabica Coffee in Sarawak

Today, we have witnessed a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Lawas Highland Estate (LHE) and Earthlings Coffee Workshop. 

We hope to systematically motivate local farmers to further improve their coffee quality, pricing, and production rate by working together.

Lawas Highland Estate is one of our most esteemed collaborators because we are proud to have Sarawak’s very own Arabica grower working closely with us.

Our other collaborator is Sabarica. Their success in Sabah has also proven the feasibility of growing high-quality Arabica coffee in Malaysia. 

LHE and Sabarica are the only two Arabica growers we know in Malaysia with sizeable productions; there may be others in West Malaysia which we have yet to discover.

About three years ago, since LHE’s first mini harvest, we could taste the improvement in their coffee every year. At the same time, we’ve also learnt how difficult it is to mass-produce this delicate species locally.

Malaysia is in the centre of the Coffee Belt, but history did not pave its way for high-quality coffee production in Malaysia’s agricultural landscape. There’s no legacy in sophisticated technology for Arabica coffee cultivation. Anyone who wishes to move forward in this direction would have to start from scratch.

The challenges we face is not only physical but how we think about agriculture. To change the mindset of local farmers from asking “how much per acre” to “how exquisite will this coffee taste” will not happen overnight. Especially when they are so used to the way oil palm, pepper, and timbre economy works. The recent production drop due to the unforeseen pandemic makes the situation direr. 

Our biggest fear is not in the inflating cost nor challenges to sell downstream but the loss of faith in the coffee cultivation of local farmers due to its unsustainability. 

Sustainability is the first potential crisis we would like to address in this new memorandum, which entails an annual buying quantity assurance with a pricing scheme that increases with volume, along with technical support. 

We will also push the niche quality standards even higher by securing LHE’s best harvests as Earthlings Reserve Lot.

We hope our collective effort can nourish a remunerative cycle in local coffee plantations. And to bring forth positive changes in the way native farming communities live and work. 

We believe we are leaping towards the ideal coffee future we have in mind for Sarawak.