Coffees from India and the Pacific : Sulawesi (Celebes)

The Indonesian island of Sulawesi, formerly Celebes, spreads like a huge four-fingered hand in the middle of the Malay Archipelago. The Sulawesi coffee most likely to be found in specialty stores today comes from a mountainous region near the base of the southwestern finger of the island, north of the port of Ujung Padang. The region and the coffee, Toraja, are named after the colorful indigenous people of the region. The coffee is also called Kalossi, after a regional market town.

Whether we call it Sulawesi Toraja or Celebes Kalossi, coffee from this region can range from a plantation grown, wet-processed coffee with a smooth, vibrant but relatively low-acid, medium-bodied profile to small-grower coffees that resemble the Mandheling coffees of Sumatra both in virtues (when they are good they are deep, resonant, and pungently complex in the lower registers) and in vices (off-tastes range from earth through musty hardness to an odd stagnant water or pondy taste).