The Haven of Exclusive Coffee

Jakarta - Green, light blue, and maroon colored wood panels are spread on the floor. Their colors are faded, a sign of old woods. 

The woods were used before as materials to make fishing boats. Now, those colored woods have been placed inside a shopping center.
 
Those wooden panels changed the face of Starbucks Reserve shop in the Amarta Lobby of Grand Indonesia Mall, Jakarta. "The concept we are trying to adopt is the environment of Sunda Kelapa Harbor," said Starbucks Marketing Communication Manager, Yuti Resani, to Tempo.

According to Yuti, the Starbucks Reserve is actually not the newest Starbucks coffee shop, because at the same place, two months earlier, regular Starbucks coffee shop still open regularly. In the past two months, however, this coffee shop was closed for renovation.

Starbucks Reserve Grand Indonesia became the first coffee shop with the logo "Reserve" in Indonesia. "The previous Reserve shop already opened in South Korea and plenty in United States," said Yuli. In Malaysia, this kind of shop is still unavailable.

What is the difference between Starbucks Reserve and a regular Starbucks?  "The difference are in the types of coffee they sell and the 'Starbucks Experience' that is given," said Yuli. Starbucks Reserve sells rare and limited exotic black coffee. "That excludes other drinks that are regularly being offered at Starbucks," she added.

There are three types of black coffee that are being sold since the opening day of the Reserve shop, which are: Sun Dried Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, Finca Nuevo Mexico and Sumatra Lake Toba. The Sumatra Lake Toba are intentionally produced in the opening of Reserve shop.

The American and African coffee both have a unique taste. Ethiopia Yirgacheffe is the type of coffee that has a sour, a bit sweet and a bitter texture.

The gourami taste from the Ethiopia coffee is extracted because the coffee berries are dried carefully since they were plucked. The coffee berries blackened and shrinks, overlaying the coffee bean within, that produces the coffee taste. This coffee may not be suitable for people that are traumatized with bitter coffees that will make you stay awake.

Finca Nuevo is a coffee from Mexico that is developed by the Baumann Family – from Germany that lived in Mexico since 1926 – with a limited plantation of 100-acres, from the 300-acres of their own land.  

The remaining lands that are not being planted are to be left to become boundaries of nature reserve.  This type of coffee has a sour taste and a lighter texture.  It comes in orange sour with a brown sugar taste in that cup of coffee.

Yuti warns that types of coffee could not necessarily be tasted every time. "The stocks are limited.  So if they are out of stock, then there is no more.  This is seasonal," she said.
Besides the rareness in coffee, the baristas serving you are also considered "rare".  

They are the masters in coffee creation that had been through various stages of educations about coffee. It means that you will find baristas with black aprons, which means they are no mere baristas.

Source : Tempo