Eight Different Shades of Black Coffee in Indonesia

Being an Ipoh boy, I was blessed with some of the best coffee around. There was no need to look too far for the cuppa. Even the coffee-o brewed in a kettle (yes and for all) early morning and left on the kitchen table by grandma was exceptionally good even at 11am. It was the beverage for the common folks.

Good coffee was to be found in the coffee shops. Each has their own concoction of a variety of components, like sugar, salt, spices, margarine, butter etc. And most coffee roasters imported the Mandeling' Arabica from Sumatra for many years until the Japanese cornered the seeds.

Grown at an altitude of 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level its the preferred beans for a good cuppa. It was a lighter shade of black when brewed as coffee-o. Therefore it was named as white coffee. That's the story passed to me by my father.

Well, there was no foreign coffee chains as yet in Malaysia during the 70's. Some have not even existed then. Ipohans were contented with their secret white coffee till the invasion of the trendy and avant-garde.

Kopi Tubruk from Bandung and Bogor respectively. Brewed with ground coffee. No escaping the coffee debris left there intentionally. Get ready for the coffee moustache. Standard coffee in Indonesia.

Garut Coffee, Bandung's Arabica.

Toraja Arabica. Excelso, a huge local coffee chain in Indonesia. Toraja from Sulawesi.

Sumatra's Mandeling.

Java Arabica

J. Co Americano Java. Standard Western.

Aceh Arabica

Luwak at about RM30 a cup