A cup of Javanese coffee from the good all days

By Sie Yoe Lien

BANDUNG (JP): One of Indonesia's finest coffee stores is nestled in downtown Bandung on a noisy, haphazard street lined with stores full of new and not-so-new electronic goods and automotive spare parts.

Flanked on either side by stalls stands a plain white art deco bearing a sign identifying it as the Aroma coffee store. Here, the delicious bean is stored, processed and sold in exactly the same way it has for nearly 70 years.

"Processing good coffee is just like cooking gourmet food, it cannot be speeded up or enhanced by modern technology," says Widyapratama, who took over Aroma from his father, the founder of the store.

The slick and harried world of the 1990s immediately disappears the moment a customer enters through a narrow wood- paneled door to find glass jars chock full of coffee beans atop heavy wood furniture.

The 60-year-old German coffee grinders, often used as atmosphere enhancers at fashionable cafes, are still in full use at Aroma.

"I've tried those modern Taiwanese grinders, but before you know it they're broken," Widya said as ran his fingertips lightly along the sharp blade of the Hamburg grinders. "These German ones, they just don't quit."

The reliable German machinery does not stop at the storefront. Connected to the shop is a high-ceilinged warehouse and factory where Widya stores and processes the fragrant beans.

The factory is a compilation of clunky iron machinery which resembles a 19th century industrial revolution hall at Western museums. The coffee roaster, with the date 1936 printed on its side, has a big hollowed iron ball, where the beans are placed, which rotates above a slow fire.

"Almost all the equipment and items I use are from the days of my father, even the brown paper bags we package our coffee in were ordered from Holland in the 1940s," he said. "Those were the days when people knew how to make quality products."

The dark warehouse is piled high with sacks of coffee. These contain Arabica beans, which are stored for an average of seven to eight years, and Robusta beans kept for three years or less.

"That's how long it takes for the beans to be ready for processing, completely removing the bitterness from the beans," Widya said. He added disdainfully that "in these times the beans are all treated with chemicals to enhance their flavor. I refuse to do that."

Passionate trade

It is an understatement to describe the smiling 45-year old man as passionate about his trade. He seems to know everything there is to know about coffee, and then some, from how the beans should be stored ("only in jute sacks, never plastic ones which do not let the beans breathe") to how to prepare excellent iced coffee ("prepare it and then put it in the fridge, never put ice cubes in it like they do in those so-called cafes").

"It's like second nature to me; when I see a bean, I know from its color and texture how old it is, how good it is, and from which region it comes from," he said.

Widya buys his coffee from all over Indonesia, including Aceh, Timor, Toraja and West Java, "to assure a good blend of taste".

"A cup of coffee should only be worth drinking when it's foamy," he said, proudly presenting a cup of jet black coffee, crowned with foam.

Coffee calling

The cup of coffee was indeed a special treat as Aroma has maintained its core business as a store, and emphatically not a cafe, since 16-year-old Tan Houw Sian started Aroma in 1930.

"Many people have urged me to start a cafe, but that's not my calling," Widya said. "I like what I do now and my customers like my product. Why would I want anything else?"

And what customers he has, from the Chedi and Savoy Homan, Bandung's premier hotels, to several foreign missions and the Regent and Mandarin hotels in Jakarta, just to name a few.

"We blend Aroma coffee with other beans as it is too strong for some people," a manager of the Chedi said.

He added that his family has been drinking Aroma coffee "since my grandmother's generation."

While some people may be skeptical about the meticulousness in which Widya prepares his prized beans, many of his customers swear by Aroma coffee.

"It's like nothing I've ever tasted before... It has such a complex taste with a smooth finish that lingers," said Kirk Coughlin, an American executive residing in Bandung for a year.

Coughlin, who was in the store to purchase his regular supply, said he has delighted many friends and family members with gifts of the coffee in his hometown of Portland, Oregon.

Widya said the store has never advertised its product, coyly adding that "our quality is advertisement enough."

Yet, like all small family businesses, the lingering question remains -- who will carry on the tradition?

"I'm not sure," Widya's 13-year-old daughter Monika answered shyly when asked whether she or her two younger sisters would be the third generation of Aroma brewers.

Widya, who currently runs the store with his wife Maria Luisa and four employees, said that as an only child he had followed the closely the workings of his father's business since he was young. Although he finished an economics degree from Parahyangan University, one of Bandung's most respected institutions, "I chose to continue the business."

In the classic style of the truly old-fashioned entrepreneur, he politely declined to disclose his business turnover.

He said that he has never taken one day off work since he took over the store almost two decades ago.

"We rest on Sundays and I travel twice a year outside Java to visit my suppliers," he said. He then excused himself to serve a customer who had stepped into the store, even though it had closed half an hour before.