BY OLIVIA MIWIL - 26 JUNE 2014 @ 8:04 AM
FACTORY visits can simply sound like a field trip meant for schoolchildren but not when it’s named Borneo Coffee Experience.
I can already smell the caffeine goodness in my head when I pick up the phone to make an appointment for a two-person visit. And coffee is not even my cup of tea!
Here I am at Sedco Industrial Estate in Kolombong, near Kota Kinabalu — standing facing a factory-looking building that has a huge graffiti of humpy men brewing beverages painting across its exterior wall with a signboard that reads Santola Bar and Coffee School. This is actually is a coffee-processing plant that has recently expanded its wings to include a coffee bar and coffee school.
Santola Bar general manager Jessica Paulinus greets me with a simple question: “Have you seen raw coffee seeds?”
I shake my head. Since I don’t really fancy coffee, I have chosen to stay ignorant about all things related to the stimulant drink. But it never crossed my mind that this simple coffee tour will convert me.
At the gallery, we see gunny sacks filled with dull-looking brown, odourless seeds. This sight definitely doesn’t look like those on TV commercials.
The tour slowly heats up when Jessica takes us out of the building to show us a coffee tree. It has been there for more than 10 years and still bears fruit. The fruit looks like mini tomato but not as soft and squishy. The flesh is sweet, like that of mangosteen.
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“The plant can grow anywhere, even in urban areas but to ensure the quality of the beans, it requires meticulous care,” she says.
By then we’re distracted by a strong coffee aroma that seems to come from the back of the building. Seeing our faces, Jessica leads us towards the origin of the strong aroma.
At the back of the building, a worker in his 40s is busy putting beans from sacks into a huge, fully automatic roasting machine.
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My inner child gets all excited looking at thousands of shining roasted beans coming out. They are nicely browned, like caramalised candies falling from the sky except that these “candies” have a good mix of sweet and bitter scents.
Jessica says the crop, the roasting method and the brewing process play important role in determining the standard of good coffee that is balanced in bitterness and fragrant aroma.
We then proceed to the packaging section and end at the coffee bar.
The company’s second generation owner, Yap Cheen Boon, joins us for the coffee break and shares with us his aspiration to turn Sabah into a coffee-producing State.
Yap says the company plans to plant coffee trees next year on a 20-hectare plot in Ranau, a district located 1,176m above sea level.
“This tour is a small step towards inculcating coffee appreciation among locals and stakeholders, besides offering them affordable and well-brewed coffee,” says the coffee connoisseur and certified barista.
For me, it has helped me acquire a taste for coffee. The growing interest in the beverage even prompts me to drive 200km from State capital to taste originally processed coffee beans in Tenom.
There are several coffee factories here but what I like the most is Yit Foh Coffee factory, located 3km from the town, as it uses the old-school method to roast beans.
Its managing director, Alex Yong, who is also the second generation running the business, insists on using rubber tree charcoal to process the material even though this affects the
production volume.
“The smoke from the burning process is absorbed by the beans to give drinkers that nostalgic taste. This roasting method has also become a unique tourism product as people are starting to be interested in traditional and cultural things,” he says, adding that the people of Tenom are ardent coffee lovers.
The people are definitely proud of their coffee. When I stop at a coffee shop at town before proceeding to the factory, the waiter’s first question to me was: “Do you want to try our Tenom coffee?”
Established in 1960 and the first factory in the district, Yit Foh Coffee is open for daily visits except Sundays and public holidays. Visitors can watch a short video on the processing and brewing processes, as well as taste the coffee.
As I’ve made an advance booking with a special request, Yong lets me take a close look in the roasting room which is mainly restricted to the workers.
“For hygiene purposes, we have to restrict visitors from going into the processing room,” he says. “Furthermore, as charcoal is used for there, we only allow workers who have been trained and worked for at least three years to regulate the fire and heat of the charcoal,” he says, adding that it takes about two hours to produce 80kg of beans.
At the gallery and coffee tasting areas, Yong demonstrates the brewing process using a siphon coffee maker.
The 15-minute coffee-making session looks like a school experiment using apparatus in science laboratory but the difference is the irresistible coffee aroma that fills the air.
Over a cup of coffee topped with vanilla ice-cream, I ask Yong about the future of coffee drinking in the State.
“There is always the potential for the coffee industry to grow as there are many coffee lovers and the government has also promoted coffee farming as a money-earning project,” he says.
Fast facts
Borneo Coffee Experience by Santola Bar and Coffee School
GPS coordinate 5.979182, 116.116931.
Fee: RM25 per person.
Operation hours: Office hours during weekdays
Tel: 016-218 2833.
Coffee Farm Tour by Yit Foh Coffee factory
Operation hours: 8am to 5pm daily except Sundays and public holidays.
Tel: 013-863 3386
Email:
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