Fabolous Flores
Flores is not only beautiful but is also a gem for coffee production—any coffee.
Flores Island is very well suited to growing coffee. Most of the island consists of mountainous terrain with high altitudes. Our partner co-op ASNIKOM and its members have been growing both Arabica and Robusta coffee for many years.
Despite the fact that 25% of the world’s coffee market consists of the Robusta variety, it is still regarded as a lesser quality coffee. People have called Robusta “bitter,” “strong,” and “harsh,” even though it can also make a great cup of coffee if it is processed to the highest standards.
We set about a mission to produce the best Robusta we could and explore its potential to the fullest. We believe a “Fine Robusta” could be loved by many traditional coffee drinkers as its own or in blends.
Across these years, what started as a simple R&D project has evolved into something bigger and very substantial. Since 2015, when the project started, the demand for ASNIKOM’s Fine Robusta has grown almost a hundred-fold in volume. From two farmers at the start, we now source from more than 200 farmers within ASNIKOM.
As we have seen some exponential growth for our Fine Robusta project, we have also learnt along the way how to achieve scalable economies in processing coffee. Together, we have come up with a unique system for logistics that ties together several micro-processing mills into a single structure.
We think that with the help of ASNIKOM, we will be able to improve our micro mill strategy for the next harvest and be able to give you great Robusta every year.