Sumatra Kardon & Yulinda

Lintong refers to a specific area to the south of Sumatra’s Lake Toba. Apart from Dutch plantations in Aceh, this was where specialty coffee came first in Sumatra. Here we find a Tokeh named Kardon who collects from a group of 200 widows. He keeps their coffee separate. While the widows’ families have been in coffee for over 200 years, they often face a knowledge gap after their husbands pass away. Kardon and his team, with the support of our Sumatra-based staff, assist these farmers with training. They teach farming practices and first-stage coffee processing. Kardon and his wife Yulinda, who manages the books, receives wet parchment from each producer. They further dry and hull it down to green beans. They do this in two locations around Dolok Sanggul, near the south shore of Lake Toba. Kardon is a younger guy who took over the coffee collection business after his parents retired from it around 2015. We were happy to be the first to contract coffee from this group through to export. We think the coffee does justice to the people behind it. It’s easy to say that Kardon is one of our favorite partners in Sumatra.