All coffees have a story. A place, a producer (or producers), and an environment—all things contribute to shaping how that coffee tastes. This is true for every coffee on our catalogue, including our latest release: for the first time ever, we’ve sourced a Papua New Guinean coffee for Timely One.

Timely One is, first and foremost, a flavour profile: clean and balanced. Like all of our Originals range, the origin changes every couple of months, but the flavour stays consistent year-round. Historically, we’ve selected coffees from Central and South America for this, so adding a coffee from Papua New Guinea is something we’re really excited to share.

This lot comes from smallholder farmers in the Okapa District in the Eastern Highlands Province. The region’s fertile volcanic soil, steady rainfall and high elevations are ideal coffee-growing conditions, and are all things that can contribute positively to flavour in the cup.

Okapa (represented by the red pin) is in the Eastern Highlands are of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is about three hours by air from Darwin. Map source: Google Maps

Coffee has been grown in Okapa for generations. Introduced by European colonisers in the late 19th century, it has become an important part of local families’ livelihoods. Many work small plots intercropped with food crops, passing down knowledge and care for the land through generations.

The Okapa growing region. Source: Numero Uno

Producers here often face challenges such as remote locations and limited infrastructure. Despite this, communities and cooperatives continue to find ways to improve quality and strengthen livelihoods for smallholder producers.

Goroka, the capital of the Eastern Highlands, is an important hub for the region’s coffee. Local companies in Okapa buy parchment coffee from growers and handle processing and final preparation for export. Because Okapa is remote, coffee is often airfreighted to Goroka before it travels further.

In Okapa, ripe coffee cherries are picked by hand and taken to local wet mills to be pulped, fermented, washed and dried on raised beds or patios. The washed process is common here and highlights the coffee’s clean acidity and floral notes.

Coffee drying on tarps in Papua New Guinea. Source: Coffee Hunter

Timely One is about something consistent that you can rely on, while still changing and adapting with the seasons. In this iteration, we think this coffee tastes like chocolate, with sweet fruity acidity and a caramel body. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Love Timely xx