Timor Coffee

Ingredients

The coffee

• 60 gTimorese arabica beans
• whole, roasted
• or 250 g green Timorese beans
• to roast yourself
• medium roast suits them well

The water

• 700 mlfresh cold water
• filtered if your tap water is hard
• heated to about 94 degrees
• just off the boil

Sometimes added

• sugar, to taste
• sweetened condensed milk
• a little grated ginger
• for a local variation

Equipment

• a burr grinder, if possible
• a plunger pot or a pour-over cone
• or simply a pot and a strainer
• a heavy pan, to roast
• a metal colander, to cool beans

Directions

1. Keep them out of the light and away from heat. Do not store coffee in the fridge or freezer.
2. Heat a heavy pan over a medium to high flame. Add a single layer of green beans to it. Do not crowd the pan or they roast unevenly. Stir them constantly and never walk away. After a few minutes you hear a cracking sound.
3. Tip them into a metal colander immediately. Toss them in the air to cool them fast. Beans keep roasting from their own stored heat. Rest roasted beans for a day before brewing. Grind coarse for a plunger pot, like coarse sand.
4. Grind medium for a pour-over, like table salt. Heat the water to just off a full boil. About ninety-four degrees is the target. Let a boiled kettle stand for thirty seconds. For a plunger pot, warm the pot first.
5. Pour that warming water away before brewing. Add sixty grams of coffee for seven hundred of water. Pour just enough water to wet all the grounds. Wait thirty seconds and watch the bed swell. Pour the rest in a steady stream. Stir the surface gently with a wooden spoon.
6. Put the lid on but do not press yet. Steep it for four minutes by the clock. Pour it all out immediately after plunging. Discard the rinse water before brewing. Add the grounds and level the bed flat.
7. Keep the level below the filter rim. The whole pour should take about three minutes. Serve the coffee black to taste it properly. Taste is subjective and yours may well differ. Never reheat coffee once it has gone cold. Pour leftover coffee over ice instead.

Technique

• The Hibrido de Timor is a spontaneous natural cross between arabica and robusta, found on Timor in the 1920s. Those species do not normally cross. It carried robusta’s resistance to coffee leaf rust into arabica, and Catimor and Sarchimor — grown across many countries today — descend from it. A plant found on this island shaped coffee worldwide, which is not widely known outside the trade.
• Portugal planted coffee here in the nineteenth century and ruled until 1975. Indonesia invaded within days of the independence declaration and occupied the country until 1999; the violence is well documented and the death toll estimates are very high. Independence came in 2002. The coffee trees survived it all and farmers returned to them. That is the background to the cup.
• Most Timorese coffee is organic largely because smallholders cannot afford chemical inputs, not because of a deliberate philosophy. Much of it is certified and sold as organic. The atlas records the reason along with the fact.
• Home roasting produces a lot of smoke and papery chaff. Roast outdoors or with a window open and the extractor running, and expect an indoor smoke alarm to go off.
• Cool roasted beans fast in a metal colander. Beans hold enough heat to keep roasting themselves past the point you wanted.
• Buy beans by roast date rather than use-by date, and store them airtight at room temperature. The fridge and freezer cause condensation, which damages them.
• Much coffee in Timor-Leste is simply boiled in a pot and poured off the settled grounds. It gives a heavier cup with more sediment and it works perfectly well.

Substitutions

• Any single-origin arabica can be brewed by the same method if Timorese beans are unavailable. It will not taste the same and the atlas does not pretend otherwise.
• Pre-ground coffee works if you have no grinder; buy small quantities and use them within a week or two.
• A pour-over cone replaces a plunger pot; grind a little finer and pour more slowly.
• Boiling the grounds in a pot and pouring off the settled coffee replaces any equipment at all, and is what many Timorese households do.
• Sweetened condensed milk replaces fresh milk and sugar together, and is more usual there than fresh dairy.
• A stovetop moka pot makes a stronger, more concentrated cup; grind fine for it.

Variations

• A dark roast is sold for espresso and gives a heavier, more bitter cup that stands up to milk.
• Iced black coffee, brewed strong and poured over plenty of ice, is the everyday hot-weather version.
• Coffee with grated ginger stirred into the cup is made in some Timorese households.
• Cascara, a tea made from the dried coffee cherry husk, is drunk in some growing areas and sold as a speciality product.
• Indonesian coffees from Sumatra, Flores and Java are the nearest regional relatives, processed differently and tasting quite distinct.
• Cooperative-marketed Timorese coffee is sold as certified organic and fair trade in many export markets.

History

Arabica planted by the Portuguese in the nineteenth century; the Hibrido de Timor, a natural arabica-robusta cross, is used in breeding worldwide.

Frequently asked questions

What is Timor Coffee?

Timor Coffee is a drink from Timor-Leste: organic arabica from mountain smallholders, the national pride. Arabica planted by the Portuguese in the nineteenth century; the Hibrido de Timor, a natural arabica-robusta cross, is used in breeding worldwide.

How long does Timor Coffee take to make?

Timor Coffee takes 10 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes, if roasting green beans of cooking. The recipe makes makes 4 cups. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Timor Coffee?

Yes, within limits. Any single-origin arabica can be brewed by the same method if Timorese beans are unavailable. It will not taste the same and the atlas does not pretend otherwise. Pre-ground coffee works if you have no grinder; buy small quantities and use them within a week or two. A pour-over cone replaces a plunger pot; grind a little finer and pour more slowly. Boiling the grounds in a pot and pouring off the settled coffee replaces any equipment at all, and is what many Timorese households do. Sweetened condensed milk replaces fresh milk and sugar together, and is more usual there than fresh dairy. A stovetop moka pot makes a stronger, more concentrated cup; grind fine for it.

What is the most important thing to get right in Timor Coffee?

Keep them out of the light and away from heat. Do not store coffee in the fridge or freezer.