Sarawak Liberica Refinement Project Part 3

In May 2024, Earthlings Coffee is honoured to have Dr Aaron Davis (lead author of The re-emergence of Liberica coffee as a major crop plant) from the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew and Dr Carman Ablan Lagman from De La Salle University (both are experienced coffee researchers) to investigate Sarawak’s Liberica and share their expertise.

Our first project is a site visit to Tarat, one of Agriculture Research Centre’s (ARC) coffee plantation with valuable 40-year old Liberica trees. As ARC’s official collaborator, we were honoured to have their officers help us uproot a dying old Liberica tree to study its root system. This helps us gain insight to future planning in Liberica cultivation.

At an official sharing session, kindly hosted by ARC, we heard Dr Aaron Davis shared the latest genetic research results on Liberica species from the UK’s Kew Garden, which was an eye-opener.

The history of Liberica’s global spread can be traced back further than we thought, as early as the 1860s it had been widely planted around the world. Moreover, many of the Liberica we thought we knew might not be Liberica at all, but one of seven different coffee species.

Dr. Ablan’s Liberica research from De Salle University in the Philippines also gave us a lot of inspiration. Yes, in terms of yield, the Philippines’ Liberica and Excelsa are greater than our country. We still have to import Liberica from the Philippines every year. However, in terms of the planting ratio of species, we are the only country in the world that mainly plants Liberica species.

While the experts are in Kuching, we brought them to visit as many coffee farmers as we could reach out to, hoping to pass on valuable knowledge and encourage local coffee cultivators.

We then launched the most complete Liberica sample cupping (including Liberica cascara and blossom tea) from all around Sarawak (highland and lowland), major growers in West Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines (brought over by Dr Ablan Lagman).

The most interesting part was the cupping of the rare Excelsa coffee brought by Dr Aaron Davis from his projects in Uganda and India. It was a mind-blowing experience as very few of us have tasted pure Excelsa, and we all agreed that its flavour profiles are entirely different from Liberica.

It was an insightful session, especially with the presence and input from the owners of Black Bean Coffee and Kura Kura Coffee.

We believe that promoting sustainable coffee cultivation in Sarawak hinges on developing the right knowledge grounded in coffee science. Therefore, we conducted field investigations with Dr. Aaron P. Davis and Dr. Rainer Weisshaidinger in several coffee-growing villages along the Baram River, including Long Sit, Long Semiyang, Long Banga, Long Balong, and Bario. These investigations examined the local natural environment, climate, soil, coffee varieties, and socio-economic challenges of cultivation. The results are shared with the Department of Agriculture to explore optimisation solutions.