PAPUA NEW GUINEA 2025
Ryan took a trip this past month to one of our longest-term partners: Sigri Estate in Papua New Guinea (along with a few others). Here’s what he had to say about this long journey.
The time has finally come to visit PNG. Since the travel is so lengthy and remote this trip is as much of an adventure as it is an origin trip. We have been working closely with Benchmark Coffee Traders for a decade to source tasty coffees from PNG. In addition to sourcing beautiful coffees, Benchmark seeks to find ways to work with coffee producing communities by investing in peripheral needs like education. While on the ground in PNG we were able to visit our community give back project from 2021, which allowed us to invest in a school building project in the Western Highlands. This project allowed for greater access to education and resources for students in this remote village of PNG and we were so pleased to get to see this project and meet some of the folks involved.
GIVING BACK
Community Giveback project in 2021 funded a new classroom for the Pilma Elementary School. 50 cents from every bag of Community sold in 2021 went directly to this project.
Above is an image of a family working in the nursery at Sigri Estate.
A coffee flower that will turn to fruit in the coming weeks for another round of harvesting.
Due to the changing climate there we were unable to see much of the picking, washing and fermentation process as weather patterns have been so unpredictable the harvest time has been split up this year. Heavy rains and major erosion have caused major issues with coffee production lately as the estate sits on relatively flat terrain.
One of the first things we got to see at Sigri Estate was a tangible investment in the future of coffee production with brand new equipment in the Dry Mill. Unfortunately, we couldn’t photograph these pieces, but this capital investment should help ensure better quality sorting of the different grades of coffees they are producing. The gravimetric, densimetric, color sorting, and hand sorting practices taking place should ensure less than one percent of defect in these particular coffees.
Women hand sorting at Sigri
Men in the Sigri Dry Mill
When it comes to its workers… Sigri Estate provides a safe space where families can live and thrive. Sigri Estate embraces a cradle to grave policy, where you live and die on the estate. This is largely attributed to safety, work, and additional services that the estate provides.
From the western Highlands we then traveled via land rovers to the Eastern Highlands region. In the east we stayed in the city of Goroka. While there we had the privilege of cupping smaller lots of coffees from several producers. The takeaway was that PNG has much more potential to offer than we ever knew in terms of separating lots from small holder farms. Making the trip this year has allowed us to ensure stronger relationships and put our name on the coffees that interest us and our customers the most. We are going to be very excited for several new coffees and new relationships coming out of PNG in the near future. Cheers.
