The Future of ‘Beririjarak’ Coffee

With a small capital, Sopian Hadi started a coffee processing business. But the business was finally stopped because there was no market, no brand, and inconsistent product quality.

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Sopian Hadi

Residents of Beririjarak village are well acquainted with coffee but they lack interest in growing it. Coffee does not require special attention when grown. Recently, local people\'s views on coffee have changed after Sopian Hadi (32) showed that coffee can make money too.

Beririjarak is located in Wanasaba district, East Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara. Located close to the Mount Rinjani National Park (TNGR) area, Beririjarak has a potential area to develop coffee cultivation and ecotourism. However, for decades, the potential has been neglected.

" If they were sold, the price was so low. There was no hope," said Sopian on Friday (11/6/2021). With such a condition coffee farming was not attractive. That\'s why acres of coffee plantations in the village were turned into secondary crop farming areas, mostly to grow vegetables.

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Only in 2017, there were parties who began to pay attention to the potential of the Beririjarak coffee. At that time, the NTB-based Gema Alam environmental movement, in cooperation with another environmental movement Rimbawan Muda Indonesia, conducted an ecotourism mentoring program for Beririjarak residents. One of the topics of the mentoring was to develop coffee cultivation.

Sopian was of the participants of the mentoring program. He got knowledge about the benefits in growing coffee plants. He also learned how to process coffee, including how to roast tem. “At that time coffee was roasted until the color turned deep black with traditional tools. After the beans turned black, they were pounded," said Sopian.

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Sosok Sopian Hadi, Desa Beririjarak, Kecamatan Wanasaba, Kabupaten Lombok Timur, Nusa Tenggara Barat.

With a small capital, Sopian started a coffee processing business. But the business was finally stopped because there was no market, no brand, and inconsistent product quality. Even if someone bought, they bought it through Gema Alam with an intention to help the marketing. Finally, the business was closed for several months until the end of 2017.

In early 2018, Sopian tried to revive his coffee processing business in Beririjarak. He bought equipment such as a roasting machine, brewers, and others. He faced a great challenge in running his business because there were so many coffee brands available in the market. In addition, people in Beririjarak used to drinking coffee roasted with grain rice. "Then, who wanted to drink my coffee?" he added.

The 2018 earthquake, apart from causing a disaster, brought a hope for Sopian\'s coffee business. After the earthquake, a tourist and disaster volunteer from Australia came, whom he often accompanied. "I regularly served my coffee. It turned out that he liked it. He convinced me that my coffee had good quality," he said.

Sopian was getting excited and started to think that it was not enough to only sell his coffee in the local market.

After some time, volunteers from Malaysia also visited the village. He also liked to drink the Beririjarak coffee and took it as a souvenir when he returned to his country. Sopian was getting excited and started to think that it was not enough to only sell his coffee in the local market. So, in the same year he began to try out market its coffee outside East Lombok under the Kopi Rau brand. The brand name created together with the Gapura community means field coffee in Sasak language.

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Sopian Hadi

He then bought coffee beans from the Beririjarak residents who kept them at home because they were not selling well. He processed the coffee and sold it under Kopi Rau brand which he also marketed through social media. "I actively uploaded my coffee processing activities on the social media," said Sopian, who received equipment assistance from the East Lombok Regency Government.

Slowly but surely, Sopian’s coffee has attracted many buyers. He has successfully expanded the market of its coffee powder to Mataram, the capital of NTB and a number of cities in Kalimantan, Jakarta, Malang, and Bogor. The following year he started selling green coffee beans. In line with that, he also improved the standard for the quality of his coffee products.

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He began to encourage the local coffee farmers to adopt the red pick method. But, it was not easy even though Sopian promised to buy the coffee beans a higher price. In the end, he still bought coffee from the residents, even though not all the beans were picked red. But, Sopian had to sort out the coffee beans he bought. The sorting process involved residents, especially women in Beririjarak.

Change

According to Sopian, there is still a lot of works to do to further promote the quality and the marketing of the Beririjarak coffee so that the coffee farming can improve the livelihood of the residents.. Currently, at least there is a change in perception of the local residents on coffee farming especially after Sopian provided coffee roasting facilities for free. “In the past, people roasted their coffee mixed with rice. The portion of the rice was often larger than coffee," he said.

Sopian also no longer heard the people in his village say, “Why should we grow coffee? Why doing so while many coffee shops are around." Now, after seeing the results of his coffee business, many residents came to him and asked him how to run a coffee business.

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Seeing that the residents were getting enthusiastic, Sopian opened a Rau Coffee shop as a place for the residents to hold a discussion. From the discussion, many young people became interested in growing coffee plants . Currently, there are six young people who started growing coffee, each with an average of 10-20 coffee plants. They planted the coffee in the fields that were once used as coffee plantations.

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Sopian Hadi.

Residents who already have coffee plantations are now starting to provide a good care of them. Some residents joined a group of coffee farmers, Gawar Gong, which was formed in 2019. The group which received assistance from Sopian group consists of 15 farmers. "My hope is that this group will become a supplier of red picked coffee beans, which is now the identity of the Beririjarak coffee," said Sopian. He also trained young children to become good coffee brewers.

Sopian Hadi

Born: October 25, 1988

Wife: Bq Mariani (31)

Last education: MAN 2 Islamic High School, East Lombok

(This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi).