Crafting Connections over Coffee
Earthlings Coffee Workshop (founded in 2013) is a professional coffee company based in Sarawak, Malaysia. Operating from crop to cup, our scope spans across coffee cultivation, post-harvest processing, education and research, roasting and cafés, wholesale coffee supplies, and consultation. We import high-quality Arabica from around the world and export refined Sarawak Liberica.
In recent years, Earthlings has focused on advancing the Fourth Wave sustainable coffee movement. We founded and host the Borneo Coffee Symposium (two editions to date) and have been invited to present at international forums, including the International Coffee Convention (ICC) and Coffee Quality Institute’s PHP internal training.
We maintain formal research collaborations with Coffee Consulate (Germany), the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK), and the Sarawak Agriculture Research Centre (ARC).
Our flagship Sarawak Liberica Refinement Project works with over 500 indigenous smallholders across Sarawak’s interior and other regions, empowering producers and enabling the consistent production of specialty-grade Liberica and Excelsa coffees.
Our Purpose
Striving to bring out the best in our coffee, culture, and humanity.
Our Vision
Specialty coffee more affordable, coffee culture more accessible, local communities more enjoyable.
As a specialty coffee academy, we provide in-house professional training and education programs certified under Coffee Consulate (CC) and Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). We are the only coffee institute that offers both globally recognised qualification systems in Malaysia.
We are the official Asia Pacific regional Co-ordinator of Coffee Consulate, a natural scientific, independent training and research centre in Germany. Our team also gives B-to-B professional consultations and coffee grading according to the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) standards for those who want to venture into coffee plantations, roasterys, or retail.
Timeline & Milestones
2012-2014
We started our coffee journey and our passion had pushed us overseas to learn the craft. We were determined to bring home a coffee paradigm shift that would change the way people perceive and appreciate coffee.
2015
That passion grew larger and we founded our HQ outlet with our very own coffee lab for coffee roasting, experiments, and education. We also invited experienced coffee professionals to help us align with global standards and develop our expertise.
2016
Elementary Coffee Roasters was established as a separate chapter from Earthlings Coffee Workshop. Its initiative is to fulfil the elementary needs for good coffee and tea without too many technical and financial hurdles, making them more accessible.
In the same year, we invited the world barista champion of 2014, Hidenori Izaki to Kuching for a private consultation to further develop our team.
We had also held a free public seminar for all local coffee players and connoisseurs to come and share Hide’s knowledge and experience. It’s also the first time Sarawak’s coffee scene connected to a global coffee icon.
2017
Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia had asked us help them co-organise the Indonesia & Sarawak Coffee Festival. Our team had managed to source a number of local exhibitors and designed the event logo that has both Sarawak and Indonesia elements. The event turned out to be a great success. We had also hosted their launching event and after party. We deeply believe in giving when it comes to cultivating the local coffee movement.
Earlier that year, co-founder Raven Kwok was invited by TM to speak at the SME BizFest 2017 in front of more than one thousand people along with representatives of Google and Facebook and other high-profile entrepreneurs from West Malaysia.
We started a new chapter for Elementary Coffee Roasters in Saradise. The outlet was the first cafe to open there as we hosted the grand opening of Saradise.
Our team had the honour to serve the Chief Minister, the Deputy Chief Minister, other ministers, the directors of Saradise (Dato Chris and Michael) our new fusion coffee menu during the grand opening.
2018
Coffee has taken us to Germany three times this year. One of the trips was to be part of the Stuttgart Coffee Summit. Our founder Dr Kenny had the opportunity to present on stage, along with numerous other coffee professionals and scientists, new findings of Sarawak Liberica coffee with the help of his local coffee friends. He was then awarded the Kaldi Award of Green coffee, a Special Achievement Award for scientific findings and flavour analysis. This has strengthened our confidence in the potential of Sarawak coffees, and made it our goal to give them a place in the world coffee map!
Later that year, TEDx Petaling Street extended their invitation for Dr Kenny to speak on the TED stage about his stories and findings of the local Liberica and his unique perspective on how the appreciation and value of different types of coffees contribute to their sustainability. There were over 3000 people in the audience and his talk can be found on under the TEDx channel on YouTube.
2019
This year we hosted the very first Borneo Coffee Symposium, a platform for coffee knowledge sharing and networking inspired by the hidden gem, Liberica, a species of coffee thriving in Malaysia and Borneo and other parts of Asia. For the first time in Sarawak, we gathered coffee scientists, researchers, farmers, plantation owners, international coffee graders and judges, and other industry players to share and discuss the challenges and potentials of cultivating high quality lowland coffee, at the same time, offer the opportunity for those in various points of the coffee industry to network.
Along side the Symposium, we also hosted the first Liberica International Coffee roasting Competition – the first of its kind in the industry for this rare coffee bean. Renowned global coffee roasters were be invited to participate in the competition to test their skills in extracting the ultra-sweetness and complexity of the Liberica coffee bean