Arabica Yellow Caturra
This variety did not arrive in Flores Ostmanggarai until the 1940s. The coffee beans were secretly smuggled out of Tanah Toraja (Sulawesi), evading the strict Japanese occupation forces.
A man named Pak Matias, who was from Colol, attended college in Makassar, Sulawesi, where he met his wife. She was from Toraja, a well-known coffee-growing region. Through her, Matias learned about Yellow and Red Caturra and brought the coffee back to Colol, Manggarai Timur. To smuggle the coffee, it was disguised as cigarettes and tobacco. In Manggarai, the coffee is known as Kolumbia, or Kolumbia kuning (yellow) and Kolumbia merah, since this coffee originally comes from Colombia.
To distinguish Yellow Caturra from other coffee varieties, look for the following characteristics: When ripe, the coffee cherries are yellow instead of red. Additionally, the spacing between the branches is shorter than in Arabica SL-795.
Since 2010, this variety has been particularly celebrated in Indonesia and is also grown in our farmers’ gardens.
