The best-known and most distinctive Pacific coffee origins are grown in the Malay Archipelago, that chain of often enormous islands that make up the nations of Indonesia, Timor and Papua New Guinea. These coffees include the deep-toned traditionally processed coffees of Sumatra, Sulawesi and Timor, with their complex fruit, earth, and musty notes. By contrast, wet-processed coffees of Sumatra, Java, and Papua New Guinea are bright and floral and may range from delicate to (in the case of some Papua New Guineas) intensely and fragrantly acidy.
Arabica coffees from India tend to be sweet, floral and low in acidity. India is also the source of the world’s finest coffees of the robusta species, the wet-processed Parchment and Kaapi Royale robustas, and the exotic Monsooned Malabar, a dry-processed coffee that is exposed to moisture-laden monsoon winds for several weeks, which exotic process mutes acidity, deepens body, and adds a malty mustiness.
Hawaii coffee is another matter still. The celebrated coffees of Kona resemble the finest Central America coffees, with a classically clean, transparent cup that can range from powerfully acidy and bright to soft and delicate. The coffees of the island of Kauai are round, balanced, and low in acidity owing to low growing altitudes. The island of Molokai produces two distinctive coffees, a wet-processed Malulani Estate remarkable for its spicy pipe-tobacco tones, and the dry-processed Molokai Muleskinner, a rather rough, unpredictable coffee that often displays mild musty and fruit ferment notes.
