Origin 09 · Sarawak, Malaysia

Sarawak Liberica Long Banga Honey

Long Banga, Sarawak. Honey-processed Liberica. Tangerine, brown sugar, milk chocolate, coconut.

In the cupTangerine, brown sugar, milk chocolate, coconut

Grown without synthetic inputs
One farm, one lot

RM45 / 100g whole bean

Roasted to order
Posted in 2 working days
Replaced or refunded if faulty

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Postage Returns Questions

Free postage from RM80 in Peninsular Malaysia

Peninsular Malaysia: RM7, free from RM80
East Malaysia: RM12, free from RM150
Singapore: RM20, free from RM150
Elsewhere: At checkout

Worldwide by DHL or FedEx, 3 to 5 days.

Farm: Long Banga
Varietal: Libex (Liberica and excelsa hybrid)
Process: Honey
Altitude: 500 m
Roast: Medium
Weight: 100g whole bean
Brew: Filter, V60 or Chemex
Immersion, AeroPress

The cup

Tangerine first, bright without being sharp. Then brown sugar and milk chocolate, the sweetness a honey process leaves on the bean as the fruit dries around it. Coconut sits underneath, in the wide, low register that arabica cannot reach.

Give it two mornings. It makes sense by the second.

The story

Long Banga is a village in Sarawak's Marudi District, set beside a small river that gives the place its name. The state capital, Kuching, lies nearly six hundred kilometres west. The cherries grow here at 500 metres, on a scale most maps would miss.

This is the second lot from the same estate. The first, Ragi, was sealed without oxygen before it dried. This one is honey-processed: the skin comes off, the fruit's mucilage layer stays on the bean, and the lot dries in the sun with that sweetness still attached. Less ferment, more sweetness, a cleaner line through the cup.

Liberica is Malaysia's heritage coffee. Most of it never reaches a specialty cup. This lot is part of a small effort to change that. To take an overlooked species and treat it with the care the specialty market reserves for arabica.

The beans

Sarawak Liberica Long Banga Honey. The roasted beans.

Libex (liberica and excelsa hybrid). Honey. Medium roast.

Before you buy

The questions we would ask.

Is it worth RM45?

A 100g bag pours roughly six cups, which puts a considered morning at a little over the price of a takeaway flat white, made at home in your own time. You are also paying for things that cost us money and are easy to skip: single-origin buying rather than blending, roasting to order rather than to stock.

Is this one for me?

Long Banga, Sarawak. Honey-processed Liberica. Tangerine, brown sugar, milk chocolate, coconut. If you already drink filter coffee black and notice the difference between origins, yes. It also takes milk well, which most single origins do not. The weight of the species carries it.

Can I trust what you claim?

By publishing the parts that do not flatter us. This coffee is grown without synthetic inputs and carries no organic certificate, so we do not use the word, and we say so on the label rather than implying otherwise. Two of our coffees carry a published laboratory report. This lot is not one of them and is not scheduled to be, and we would rather say so than borrow another result.

How long does a bag last?

Roughly six cups from 100g, so a fortnight for one person drinking a cup most mornings, or about a week for two. It is a deliberately small bag. Coffee is at its best in the first weeks after roasting, and we would rather you finished it while it is still worth drinking than kept it going stale.

How should I brew this one?

We would start with a V60 or Chemex. An AeroPress works too. Roasted medium, so it is forgiving of a slightly coarse grind and rewards water just off the boil. Whole bean, ground at home if you can, because coffee begins losing its aromatics within minutes of grinding.

What if I do not enjoy it?

Write to us. If the bag is faulty, unfresh, or not what we promised, we replace it or refund it. Taste is personal, so if a coffee simply did not suit you, tell us what you thought and we will point you at the one that will. It helps us think about what to carry next.

Everything else we get asked → Our standard, in full →

Also on the shelf

Peru, CajamarcaPeru Palto

Dark chocolate, orange, toffee

RM30

Ethiopia, GujiEthiopia Kayon

Mango, coconut, mandarin

RM35

Colombia, HuilaColombia Diviso Gesha

Lemongrass, figs, grapefruit

RM55

Why this one

Why it is on the shelf.

We buy this lot from Long Banga, Sarawak. Grown at 500 m. One farm, one lot, one harvest, bought because the cup earned it and not because it was easy to source.

How it was grown

Grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers.

No herbicide is used on this farm, so no glyphosate. There is no organic certificate, and we say so.

On this coffee

This one is grown without synthetic fertiliser, herbicide or fungicide and carries no certificate. The estate is too small to fund the annual audit, which is a cost question rather than a farming one. A growing practice is not a certificate, so we do not use the word organic for it, and we will not print the word as though it were.

From the field to the cup

Most coffee is grown on a schedule of sprays. Fertiliser, herbicide, fungicide, applied to a plant that fruits in some of the wettest country on earth. It works, and it leaves a farm that needs a little more of it every season.

Growing this way is the decision not to. Compost in place of synthetic nitrogen, shade canopy in place of a cleared field. It costs the farmer more and yields less, which is why so little coffee is grown this way.

You taste the consequence rather than the practice. Under shade the cherries ripen slowly and unevenly, so they are picked in passes rather than stripped in one. Nothing was added to the field to carry a thin harvest. What is in the cup, the tree made.

And there is the part that matters at seven in the morning, before anyone has thought about agriculture. You are not wondering. It is the same instinct as turning the olive oil around to read the back, applied to the one thing you drink every single day.

The difference, line by line

FieldNo synthetic fertiliser, herbicide or fungicide.
RoastLight to medium, never past second crack, so the origin stays legible.
CupClean enough that a flavour you notice came from the coffee.

The longer case for organic →

What we have not measured

This lot is not screened.

A certificate records what a farm agreed not to use. It cannot tell you what is in the bag you are holding. For two of our coffees we ask that question separately, with an independent laboratory report published in full.

This lot is not one of them, and it is not scheduled to be. We would rather say so here than let the page borrow a result that belongs to another coffee.

LaboratoryNot screened, and not scheduled to be.
CertificateNone. Grown without synthetic inputs.
ReportsTwo of our coffees carry one, published in full.

All published results → What we test for, and why →