East Timor -Cristo Liurai

Cristo Liurai is located in the western part of Letefoho, with all the members being based around the southern perimeter of the mountain protected by the watchful gaze of the Cristo Liurai statue. Since Francisco de Deus – the lead farmer of the Rotutu group introduced us to the members back in 2020, our partnership together has gone from strength to strength. Led by Luis Santos de Jesus (a school teacher by day), each of these 15 smallholder farmers have a great respect for their coffee and the land on which it is grown. Harvesting coffee from this area is not easy due to the steep terrain and dense forests, and members need to make the daily hike up the mountain to harvest their cherries, and at the end of the day will then carry their harvest back down the mountain, often balancing sacks of up to 30kg on their shoulders. This is a very organised group, due to Luis’s oversight, who has worked tirelessly to encourage strict record keeping within the community of drying times and changes in moisture content, and for good reason. This last few years has seen increased early afternoon cloud coverage settling around the southern part of the Cristo Liurai mountain, which has meant an increased need for vigilance with drying and our continued support in providing portable drying racks to all of the group’s members. Because of this, drying times with this group are slightly longer, however good things come to those who wait – consistently producing fully washed coffee which is deliciously clean, sweet and well balanced. 2023 has also seen us build our first seedling nursery in Eratoi, where together with Simao our field manager and lead farmer of the Eratoi group, we will be looking to cultivate new coffee and shade tree seedlings. For every 10kg of green beans that we sell to our partner roasters, we will commit to planting one new coffee or shade tree seedling which will be distributed to our partner farmers (including members from Cristo Liurai) for planting at a later date, so a big thank you to you for helping us to achieve this goal.