Field Notes: Sourcing Direct at 1,500m in the Bali Highlands

The fastest way to lose the plot in coffee is to buy everything off a spreadsheet. Twice a year we run it in reverse: we leave the Wynwood roastery and fly to the highlands of Bali to stand in the rows where Kintamani Cloud begins.

At 1,500 meters the air is thin and the mornings are cold, which is exactly what you want. Cherries that ripen slowly at altitude develop denser, more complex sugars — the raw material for the brightness that survives into your cup.

Direct trade, for us, is a set of relationships. We buy from a cluster of 12 family farms, pay above the commodity price, and pay it quickly — what keeps the best cherry coming to us instead of to whoever shows up first with a truck.

We came home with the season's Kintamani committed and two experimental micro-lots we're cupping for a limited release. Keeping that nine-thousand-mile line honest is the whole job.