For multiple generations the Leahys have been based in PNG’s remote western highlands, growing, processing, and exporting specialty coffee against all odds. From its earliest introduction to the present day, the arabica gene stock in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is considered to be one of the country’s strongest natural assets, not to mention one of the best-preserved typica lineage variety sets in the world. And these delicate genetics thrive in PNG’s highlands, which are some of the most virgin and fertile on the planet. PNG’s Nebilyer Valley is a broad and fertile high-elevation valley in the country’s western highlands. As with other coffee-producing areas of PNG, there is a mixture of large estates, known locally as “plantations”, and individual smallholders with their ancestral plots or share-cropped style land leases for the purpose of cultivation. The Leahy family is considered the founders of the modern era in Nebilyer and nearby Waghi valleys. Brothers Mick and Dan Leahy, originally Australian prospectors, first entered the zone on foot in 1933, becoming the first Westerners to make contact with the region’s indigenous tribes. To open access to the highland valleys, the Leahys built an airstrip that is now one of the main streets in the town of Mount Hagen.
“Nebilyer Valley” coffee is sourced from family-owned farms located in the Tambul-Nebilyer District, a vast highland expanse west of Mount Hagen. Each producer cultivates coffee on anywhere from 1-60 hectares of land. During harvest, cherry is collected in the field and brought to the wet mill, where a visual inspection is carried out and receivable cherries are weighed by the producer. Cherries are then mechanically de-pulped and left to ferment underwater for 18 hours, after which the parchment is decanted, washed, transferred to another tank, and fermented again for 18 hours under fresh water. After the full 36 hours of fermentation is complete, parchment is carried to the adjoining fields where it is spread in a thin layer across long tarpaulins to dry in the direct sun.
PNG, like Kenya, commonly utilizes large conditioning silos for freshly-dried parchment, an extended resting phase before dry milling that allows moisture to equilibrate across the seed and for the water to bond more strongly inside, both of which promote shelf stability. In the Leahy’s case, conditioning “boxes” are used, which are 50-foot tall vertical silos that sit together in a grid, like an ice cube tray, which is used to condition newly-dried parchment and blend day lots for container-load exports.
After conditioning, the coffee is dry-milled to the specified screen size, passed through an optical color sorter, and hand-sorted for additional defect removal.
