VOC "spice trade" Route
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Since the 17th century, the Dutch East Indies Trading Company had been plying a global coffee trade based on the Arabica plantations of Java.

In 1835 Dutch trading ships entered a small port about 220km NW of Padang to unload a cargo of their highest quality Arabica seedlings. Having already studied the area, their plan was to introduce these superior seedlings to Sumatra in the highland areas of Mandailing Julu and throughout Pakantan.

This areas geographical position, altitude, climate and proximity to the ports presented the Dutch with the perfect scenario to grow, harvest and trade their most superior Arabica. This particular species of arabica produced a very large bean and one of the highest achievable qualities.

The processed coffee then would be sailed to Amsterdam and traded.

VOC Emblem
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Since that time, The Mandailing Provinces of the West Sumatran highlands have been hailed as one of the worlds premium coffee growing regions.

The strains of Arabica grown in this region produced such exceptional coffee, that it gave the Dutch a total monopoly on the global coffee trade for over 200 years.

Trading Ship - Click to enlarge

Prized throughout Europe this strong, black, rich, sweet coffee; Kopi Java Mandailing was then lost to the world and thought to be extinct due the dissolution of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company, numerous local political struggles, the Leaf Rust plague of 1880s, and eventually WWII. The plantations and the coffee trees were literally swallowed and strangled by the jungle.

Both the Sumatran coffee institute and the Indonesian coffee institute had declared these coffee strains extinct.