Timor Leste Lacau

Hi, my name is Ben Miller. I'm the Roastery Manager here at Temple and today I am very excited to tell you a little bit about our current Roaster’s Choice offering, Timor Leste Lacau. This month’s offering is coming from an origin many of you may be less familiar with, but it is one that is near and dear to me, Timor Leste or East Timor. Between 2021 and 2022, I spent about a year living and working in Timor, exporting coffee and working with the farmers. It is my great pleasure to both get to share a bit about my time there, as well as a bit of the wonderful coffee being produced there. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Timor Leste is a small nation, covering half an island in the Indonesian archipelago. Once a colony of Portugal, it was the Portuguese who introduced coffee to the island and planted much of what is still harvested today. Coffee is a way of life for the Timorese, with estimates of one third of households making their living off of coffee. They are hardworking and eager to learn more and better ways to grow, harvest and process. They face many challenges including lack of resources, lack of infrastructure and, possibly most notably, lack of global awareness. 

It is due to this last point that makes me so excited to share this coffee with our customers. Timor is a small, very young country (only gaining independence in 2001) and this leads to a lack of awareness. Someone who is unaware of a country, is not unreasonably less likely to purchase a coffee from there. So it brings me immense pleasure to share this coffee with you, one that perhaps you might not have tried otherwise. 

And that is certainly not to say that is the only reason for enjoying this coffee. This is a wonderfully round and balanced coffee. Coming from a group who works with a carefully selected and trained group of farmers, producing some of the best coffee on the island, dried on raised beds with great care. We found a sweetness that reminded us of molasses that complemented the rich, mouth-coating body, reminiscent of browned butter. Finally, there is a bright tartness, like the malic acidity of a Granny-Smith apple. 

We here at Temple are thrilled to have the opportunity to explore coffees coming from origins that are a bit more buried in the rough. While we would never discourage against the great coffees of the major producers like Ethiopia, Colombia and Guatemala, there are also other great coffees out there from origins waiting to be discovered. We think the Timor Leste Lacau is a great example of that and can’t wait for you to try it!