Jake and his family have lived in Indonesia since early 2016. After learning the Indonesian language during their first year, his wife began teaching 2nd grade at a local international school, and Jake began working with a local Indonesian church denomination. Prior to living there, he had a very average acquaintance with coffee, casually consuming brews from the major outfits in America and brewing ground coffees at home in a basic coffee drip machine.
Upon moving to Indonesia with just a basic knowledge of this country’s coffee production, he was directed by a friend to visit the local ‘coffee supplier’ for freshly-roasted authentic Indonesia coffee. In the novelty of living in a foreign country with newfound access to ‘local’ coffee, Jake excitedly began his foray into the Indonesian coffee scene. However, little did he know that this Indonesian coffee was far (sangat jauh) from the best coffee Indonesia has to offer. In God’s kindness, Jake was introduced to the local expat coffee guy, who works with Indonesians to find the best available single origin coffee beans from the vast number of islands here. Wow! Jake’s eyes were suddenly opened to the amazing and complex flavors of ‘real’ coffee, and he’s now proud to be labeled as the proverbial ‘coffee snob.’ There is no going back...ever.
The reality is that most of the participants in the world coffee scene don’t have an accurate appreciation for Indonesian coffee. Most labels for coffee from this tropical paradise include: earthy, dark, grainy, etc, and many have negative associations with Indonesian single origin beans. While these flavors do exist, they are so far from the truth! Indonesian coffees have some of the most flavorful profiles Jake has ever tasted, and since being awakened to this powerful knowledge, he has found a strong desire to share this news with the worldwide coffee community by sourcing and selling the best coffee beans available from Indonesia.
Indonesia has thousands of islands but seven islands that produce coffee. As a country, Indonesia is the fourth most popular source of coffee in the world.
Fertile Grounds Coffee, Inc., comes from the fourth chapter of the book of Mark in the Bible, where Jesus says, “Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.” Indonesia embodies that good soil, the exceptionally fertile ground (tanah subur), which proves ripe for the production of amazing coffee beans.
Our commitment is to provide you with the best single origin arabica coffee beans possible from Indonesia. We fully believe we have beans that produce superb quality and tastes for your next cup of coffee.
Jake has developed great relationships throughout Indonesia that allows us to source the best coffee beans here. He not only knows the producers, but he has also personally met and worked with many of the coffee farmers, being able to converse with them in the Indonesian language. He has witnessed first hand the educational and economic benefits our suppliers bring to our coffee farmers, resources for which they are greatly appreciative. We are not only providing you, our valued clients, with the best Indonesian coffee available, but we are also directly, positively, and personally impacting the farmers, their families, and their communities. We take our role in this endeavor seriously, placing our primary emphasis on holistically transforming the communities of our coffee farmers.
The green beans are sent directly to our roastery and co-packing facility in Cadillac, Michigan. The beans are roasted with our small batch process and packaged and sent directly to your door. Each month, we offer a different coffee with our coffee of the month subscription.