Coffee from Koto Tuo

ENJOYMENT. That's what we remember, when we mention Koto Tuo, Tanah Datar Regency, West Sumatra Province. 

roasting coffee in Koto Tuo.

How not! The area, which is located on the slopes of Mount Marapi in the Sungai Tarab sub-district, has been known for generations to produce powder with incomparable pleasure. That's it: coffee grounds and seasonings. Coffee from Koto Tuo.

About 75 percent of the nagari's residents make a living from processing coffee beans and compounding cooking spices. These two commodities are well known in West Sumatra, Riau, Jambi, Riau Islands, North Sumatra, to several other cities in Java and Kalimantan.

Not only traditional marketing, namely direct encounters between buyers and sellers, koto tuo coffee can now also be obtained online.

The smell of coffee beans being roasted and ground is already starting to hit your nose, when you enter the Nagari Koto Tuo gate, from the district road that connects Sungai Tarab with Pasie Laweh. Then look into the taste buds.

The Koto Tuo people do not grow coffee, but they brew, grind, package, and market coffee grounds. The beans are imported from other regions which are also known as the best coffee producers in Sumatra.

Interestingly, with 177 trademarks of ground coffee processed by the Koto Tuo community since 1986, they have never competed, but always synergize. Generally, one brand will dominate one to several marketing areas. That is, there is no unfair competition between trademark owner.

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The majority of the people of Koto Tuo really depend on the business of brewing, packaging, and marketing coffee grounds. On average, the nagari produces about ten tons of coffee grounds. The workforce absorbed in this sector is also not small.

The business of rendang and grinding coffee to then be packaged into ground coffee in Koto Tuo has developed from generation to generation. However, no medium and large scale businesses have grown in the nagari. Generally fall into the category of home industry.

To produce coffee grounds that have an extraordinary aroma that provokes the taste buds, residents generally use special firewood, namely cinnamon sticks. When using other types of wood, the aroma and taste will be different from what is known so far.

The development of the roasting and ground coffee business in Koto Tuo has also stimulated the birth of another business unit, namely screen printing (sablon). The coffee packaging produced by Koto Tuo has been given a brand, which is done by screen printing workers in the village itself.

The screen printing maker for the coffee powder packaging brand comes from an unemployed youth. They were trained in screen printing by the government through the PNPM program first. Now, they are never empty of orders to screen-print the powdered coffee packaging they produce.

In addition to the business of roasting and grinding ground coffee, Nagari Koto Tuo is also known as a producer of packaged cooking spices whose marketing also reaches many areas in West Sumatra, Jambi and Riau. As with coffee, the raw materials are imported from other regions.

There are many types of dry cooking spices that have been packaged by residents, then marketed to various regions. There are spices for soup, rendang, tempayang and various other cooking spices. The concoction of expert cook Koto Tuo has proven to be much sought after by consumers with Minang tastes outside West Sumatra.(MUSRIADI MUSANIF, translate from Bahasa Indonesia to English by Google Translate)