Timor-Leste - Cristo Liurai

For the fifth year running we’re super excited to offer Cristo Liurai’s beautiful coffee from Timor-Leste, sourced through Karst Organics. A small tropical island nation situated in South East Asia, the Democratic Republic of East Timor lies approximately 700km to the north of Darwin, Australia, but feels a million miles away from its prosperous and affluent neighbour. After the volatile oil and gas sector, agriculture is the mainstay economy of East Timor and coffee is the country’s main cash crop and its largest exported good. Karst spend 6 months of the year in Timor-Leste assisting with the harvest and helping to educate the farmers in processing methods.

After approaching Karst Orgaincs in 2019, the Cristo Liurai cooperative of smallholder farmers led by Luis Santos de Jesus, wanted to break away from the standard commercial buying model and realise their potential to produce speciality grade coffee. With guidance from Karst’s project managers (Francisco de Deus and Expeditu de Deus), the Cristo Liurai farmers have followed the rigorous process of sorting and floating, pulping, fermenting and drying on raised African beds to produce a deliciously fruity coffee.

Coffee plants were first brought to Timor-Leste in the early 19th century by the Portuguese and grow wild in the mountainous regions of the central highland districts flourishing underneath the shade of the natural tree canopies. Well known to be organic by default, Timor-Leste is possibly the only country in the world that produces exclusively organically grown coffee. The Timor Hybrid variety of coffee has naturally evolved in East Timor over the years. This is a unique variety of coffee which benefits from the exceptional taste of Arabica combined with the robust strength against fighting common coffee plant diseases; a trait unique to the Robusta plant. The Asia Development Bank estimates that coffee is grown by approximately a third of all East Timorese households who rely on this sector for income.

2019’s Global Hunger Index (GHI) states that a third of the population of Timor-Leste suffers chronic food insecurity and according to the government’s Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, this figure rises to between 55-58% in the coffee producing region of Ermera; in which around 50% of all Timorese coffee is grown, including the sub-district of Letefoho where Karst Organics work with their partner farmers.

Borne out of community collaboration where knowledge has been shared and potential realised, the Cristo Liurai cooperative is excited to continue to grow and develop their coffee, knowing that a focus on quality can provide a sustainable income for both the farmers and the community.

With the right investment and focus on education, coffee has the potential to play a vital role in the country’s development and provide sustainable incomes for families and their extended communities.

2023 has also seen Karst build their first seedling nursery in Eratoi, where together with Simao their field manager and lead farmer of the Eratoi group, they will be looking to cultivate new coffee and shade tree seedlings. For every 10kg of green beans that Karst sell they have committed to planting one new coffee or shade tree seedling which will be distributed to the partner farmers (including members from Cristo Liurai) for planting at a later date.