According to local sources, coffee trees were first planted in Lauana during the

Portuguese occupation in the middle of the 20th century. A king named Jaime in Lauana took an important role in expanding the coffee growing area. It is assumed that Lauana was a strategic area for the Portuguese colonial government to produce high quality coffee due to its elevation.

 

The Lauana lot consists of three village groups: Leubasa, Quililero and Tunufahi with a total of 47 coffee farmers covering 49 hectares of coffee farm. The groups joined Peace Winds Japan’s coffee farmer’s income generation program in 2003 and today the group produces one of the highest quality coffees in Letefoho.

 

Coffee farmers in higher elevation areas such as this start the harvest of coffee cherries from July and the harvest continues to September. Early in the morning, the whole family goes to pick coffee cherries and the picking continues until 2pm. The harvested cherries are brought back to their houses for the manual sorting of unripe and over-ripe cherries through flotation, they are then pulped with traditional locally made wooden pulping machine which are easy to repair with local parts. Parchment is then sorted by hand and flotation before being poured into a fermentation basket and left without water (dry fermentation) for 48 hours. Parchments is then washed to take off the mucilage and dried on tarpaulins for 4 to 5 days until the moisture drops to 10.5%-11%. Peace Winds Japan uses its 5 permanent staff and 10+ seasonal staff to visits to individual farmers to check the moisture of the parchment and once ready load it onto trucks and bring it to the capital Dili for hulling. After harvest, coffee farmers start pruning old coffee trees to maintain high productivity and prepare organic fertilizer mixing soil and the pulped coffee cherry skins to scatter over their farm, they also prepare compost for small coffee tree nurseries. 

 

Peace Winds Japan (PWJ) is a non-government organization based in Japan that is

dedicated to supporting people in distress, threatened by conflict, poverty, or other turmoil. In 1999 East Timor became independent from Indonesia, which led to massive internal violence and the displacement of many people within East Timor. It was at this time that PWJ provided assistance, in the form of medicine, food, shelter material and daily commodities. PWJ currently provide technical support for coffee farmers.

 

Coffee: Lauana

Farm: Lauana

Varietal(s): Typica and Traditional Variety

Processing: Fully Washed, Sun Dried

Owner: Lauana Farmers Group (47 Farmers)

Altitude: 1800 masl

Town: Leubasa, Quilirelo and Tunufahi Villages, Lauana

Region: Letefoho Sub District, Ermera District

Total size of farm: 49 hectares