Losari Coffee

Coffee is the second most popular drink after water and the most widely used product after oil. Have you ever thought of growing your own coffee tree ? You need to be patience to grow your own coffee tree. It will take 4 to 5 years before you can harvest your first beans from your very own coffee plant.

I have the opportunity to visit Losari Coffee Plantation in a highland of Central Java. The plantation produces high-quality robusta coffee beans every year. These beans are the earthy Indonesian that are wet processed.

 The organic coffees are being grown, picked and sun dried here. At the coffee shed, the plantation workers are roasting and grinding the coffee beans folllowing Javanese traditional processing techniques using traditional equipments. When it comes to great flavor, coffee chemistry boils down to roasting and brewing. During roasting, oil locked inside the beans begins to emerge at around 400 degrees. The more oil, the stronger the flavor. Caffeine content goes up as the water spends more time in contact with the grounds, so regular coffee often has more of it than espresso or cappuccino. Darker roasts also yield more caffeine.  

 

"Before the coffee beans being harvest, you can enjoy the dark shiny green leaves and fragrant white flowers of this very unique, ornamental plant.When it is in bloom, the coffee tree is covered with 30,000 white flowers which begin to develop into fruit after 24 - 36 hours. A coffee tree can flower eight times in any one year - depending on rainfall. The coffee cherries turn from yellow to orange and then bright red, 6 - 8 months after flowering."
via Justaboutcoffe.

"Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical." Jonathan Swift

"Coffee is the common man’s gold, and like gold it brings to every person the feeling of luxury and nobility." Sheikh ‘Abd-al-Kadir who wrote the earliest known history of coffee manuscript in 1588

Mangosteen or Manggis

Do you know that mangosteen is crowned as the queen of tropical fruits ? Do you know that mangosteen is called an honest fruit because people use to guess how many seeds are inside each mangosteen just by looking at the bottom of its skin ? Do you know that Mangosteen trees grow in wild forest and mountain areas, which trunk can reach approximately 15m height ? Do you know that this fruit is not only sweet but also very useful for our healthiness ?

This fruit contains lots of vitamin C-66 and provide the best anti-oxidant on its skin that can combat free radical. Can you imagine eating mangosteen skin ? Please do not throw its skin away. Yes, you could juice them and it can cure a lot of sickness including cancer. Mangosteen skin is also rich with xanthones which can cure TBC, ashtma and Leukimia, it is also can be used as an anti aging.

I am so proud that Indonesia is a vast producer of this fruit which is believed originated from Maluku and Java Island.

Red Chili or Cabai Merah

Most of Indonesian dishes are served with sambal. Most of Indonesian people feel that their food will not complete if there is no sambal or cabe as a condiments.

This spices is commonly used in everyday cooking around Indonesia. We produced tons of them and have a lot of varieties too.

Green Chili or Cabe Ijo

Eggplant / Aubergine / Terong Ungu

Have you seen Ratatouille the movie ? Monsieur Ego the food critics character in this movie found this dishes are delicious, French Ratatouille. This dish contains stewed eggplants. Many people around the world use this plant in their vegetables.

Indonesia is one of top 5 countries that produces eggplants. What surprises me is according to wikipedia : “The fruit is botanically classified as a berry, and contains numerous small, soft seeds, which are edible, but are bitter because they contain (an insignificant amount of) nicotinoid alkaloids, unsurprising as it is a close relative of tobacco.” Does it means that eggplant is healthy nicotine to be consumed ?

Telur Asin or Salted Eggs

There are two types of salted ducks eggs according to the process of making them. One is injected with salt water and the other is buried in salted ash and mud. Salted eggs from Brebes is usually made by burying in salted ash and mud which usually takes longer from the injected one.

Cinnamon or Kayumanis

Ah, Cinnamon is soo popular around the world. Its ingredients useful for so many things, you can find all the benefit details here or here. However cinnamon knows as Cassia Vera can be mounted to any products from cinnamon oil, cinnamon sticks to cinnamon powder..you can use it as medicine or spices.

This picture below is cinnamon stick about 50cm from Jambi Province, Indonesia.