Virgin Mountain AX1

Most of the coffee exported out of PNG is grown by smallholder producers in ‘coffee gardens’ of around 2 hectares planted with around 2,000 trees. These are often inter-planted with leguminous trees, such as Casuarina and Albizia, which provide shade cover for the coffee. There are also a number of conventional plantations, but these declined dramatically in number after PNG declared independence in 1975 and many of the large foreign land owners left the country. Most of these plantations have since been sub-divided and are now managed by ‘block holder’ tenant farmers with labour provided by the extended family. This ‘Virgin Mountain’ coffee has been produced by such small holder farmers.

From Kainantu, in Papua New Guinea’s Eastern Highlands, a rough road passes through the Aiyura Valley and twists through the hills continuing up into the Nori Kori Valley. The coffee is called Virgin Mountain due to this unique and special location, where coffee trees line the hinterlands along the local customary boundaries separating the Kamano/Kafe people and the Gadzup communities. The coffee trees are nestled along primary forest fringes across fertile slopes.