By Lorrie Baumann
Americans might be more likely to identify Java and Sumatra as coffee producers than they are to identify them as two of the islands in the Indonesian archipelago, but the long-time popularity of coffees from Sumatra, Java and Bali has propelled Indonesia into the ranks of the world’s top coffee-producing nations. “That’s how people in Europe know about Java coffee, Sumatra coffee, Bali coffee – those are all Indonesian islands,” said Michael Riady, the Founder of Tentera Coffee, which specializes in importing and roasting Indonesian coffees in small batches for the American market. “We only specialize in what we know best,” he said. “My family has been in Indonesia for five generations. We know Indonesian coffee very, very well, much better than a lot of people, and we go direct from the farm in Indonesia to the cup in America.”
Riady founded the coffee company in Los Angeles, California, after pursuing a career in real estate development in Indonesia. After 15 years in real estate, the industry lost its allure for him, and he decided to turn back to what his family, which grows coffee on Indonesian farms, knows best. “I’ve been traveling back and forth between Indonesia and America for the last 25 years. I love both places,” he said. “I love coffee myself. I decided to go back to my passion and import it straight to Americans. People know Sumatra; people know Java – they just don’t know that’s from Indonesia. Bali – that’s Indonesia.”
“Our mission is to exceed expectations. We have to exceed expectations each cup at a time, and the way we do that is by being very focused on what we do best,” he continued. “That’s the reason we try not to go and source coffee all over the world. We don’t know Brazilian coffee that well. We don’t know Ethiopian coffee that well. They’re great, but we know the Indonesian very well, and we believe that by focusing, we can exceed expectations.”
Tentera Coffee offers whole bean Indonesian coffees, ground coffees and the Single-Serve Pour-over Coffee Bag. The coffee bag was introduced to the coffee market by the Japanese, but its market has expanded very well across Asia, and it’s just being introduced to the American market by Tentera Coffee. “We are introducing a new way of drinking coffee to America,” Riady said. “This coffee solves a lot of problems.”
One of those problems is plastic waste from the cups that package most single-serve coffee. Coffee pods and capsules have been a bane of the environment ever since Nespresso patented its plastic capsule in 1991, according to environmental groups that have pointed accusatory fingers at the proliferation of the polypropylene pods as their popularity exploded in the 21st century. Their argument is that, despite the recyclable labels that generally appear on the plastic capsules, they generally end up in garbage incinerators or in landfills, where they take hundreds of years to degrade. Greenpeace points out in “Circular Claims Fall Flat,” a report published in February, 2020, that although a lot of plastic packaging products are labeled as recyclable, few of them actually are, either because of a lack of municipal recycling facilities that can handle anything other than polyethylene plastics, the kind of plastic that’s used to manufacture soda bottles, or because many other plastics cost more to recycle them than to make new plastic.
The Greenpeace report notes that the price of plastic waste has plummeted ever since China passed policies curbing Chinese imports of plastic waste, beginning in January of 2018. With China no longer accepting plastic waste, it’s become clearer in the U.S. that apparently plastic doesn’t recycle itself – someone has to think that there’s a value proposition there, and with China out of the market for recyclable plastics, Greenpeace argues that the recyclability claims that many manufacturers are making for their packaging are simply deceptive.
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Tentera Coffee’s Single-Serve Pour-Over Coffee Bags are packed in aluminum packaging that’s recyclable. “The filter is made of paper. There’s no plastic within the product – it’s primarily paper,” Riady said. “We have to strive for eco-friendlier products. It’s much more eco-friendly than the plastic pods in which some other single-serve coffees are sold.”
The single-serve packaging also offers the advantage of less waste of the coffee itself, since the coffee is made one cup at a time rather than one pot at a time, which may mean that leftover coffee is simply discarded, Riady said. “The pour over-coffee is good for 6 to 8 ounces of coffee and does not require condiments.”
In addition, Tentera gives back 1 percent of its gross sales to 1% for the Planet, a nonprofit organization that advises on giving strategies for companies and individuals that want to use money and in-kind donations as a tool to benefit the environment and that certifies the donations. To date, the organization’s members have invested over $250 million in environmental nonprofit solutions through the 1% for the Planet network, according to the organization.
But since no one buys coffee primarily out of their urge to conserve the environment, Riady is quick to reassure that the Tentera coffee itself delivers on flavor. “The coffee itself tastes a lot better – it’s excellent coffee,” he said, pointing out that the coffee bags are really just an easy way to make a single cup of coffee using the pour-over method that consumers are used to seeing performed by their favorite baristas. “The best way to drink coffee is to do a manual pour – you want to pour hot water through your coffee…. That’s why people go to specialty coffee shops to have a barista do a manual brew for them, and it will cost you $8 to $10 a cup, which is a very expensive way to drink it,” Riady said. “With the Single-Serve Pour-Over Coffee Bag, the average cost is about $1.50 per cup, and without the equipment, you don’t have to clean it, either.”
With the Pour-Over Coffee Bag, the consumer simply opens the packet and puts it over the cup and then pours the hot water through it. “It’s the best method for getting the cleanest, smoothest cup of coffee you’re ever going to get,” Riady said. “And it’s portable, by the way – you can take as many packs of coffee as you want to travel with you. If you’re going camping, you take along a couple of packs with you – or 20 packs. You don’t need to bring your machine; you don’t need to do any cleaning. Bringing your grinder is such a mess.”
Tentera’s offerings of whole bean coffees include, among others, Sumatra Gayo, which offers dark chocolate flavors; Bali Kintamani, with citrus flavors; Sumatra Rasuna, which has sweet tropical flavors; and Celebes Toraja, which offers nutty, chocolate herbal flavors. Sumatra Gayo, Bali Kintamani and Sumatra Rasuna are also offered in the Single-Serve Coffee Bags, which come in three package sizes, of which the most popular is the seven-pack box, which retails for $16.45, Riady said. The Coffee Bags are also offered in a three-bag pack that serves as a sample for beginners and retails for $7.05, and a 30-pack box that retails for $59.99. “A lot of people try the seven-pack, they love it, and then they want to buy the 30-pack,” Riady said. “Almost everything is single-origin. We don’t blend any coffee. Coffee’s so good anyway, and it’s exactly how it came from the farm. We’re not doing anything to the coffee to try to hide the flavor.”
Tentera offers seven-bag and 30-bag variety packs that showcase all the different flavors of Indonesian coffee: Bali, Sumatra and Java. “A lot of people love that because they want to try a different coffee every day,” Riady said. “People love it – it’s a way to have an experience and enjoy something without having a lot of hassle.”