“The taste of customers has changed.”
Marasi Situngkir told me this one night, while he and I sat together in his coffee shop. He’s waiting for visitors to stop by, and I’m watching the cars drive by off the side of the highway in Medan City.
Marasi is middle-aged, and his coffee shop is called Gerobak Kopi City+. He keeps it open from early in the morning until late at following the habits of his customers. Seven years ago, in 2017 or so, this coffee shop became one of the coolest spots for coffee lovers in Medan, the capital and largest city of North Sumatra—it’s 2.5 million people puts it right between Houston and Chicago in terms of population. At Kopi City, Situngkir brews exclusively Sumatran coffee from several single estates, such as Lintong and Mandailing coffee from North Sumatra, and Gayo coffee from Takengon, Central Aceh. Most of the coffees are processed by the wet grinding method, and some of them are processed in a style known locally as “wine coffee”—a style of processing fermentation that produces a rich taste, with sweet, sour, and acidic flavors all present in a cup.
Back in 2017, third wave coffee was trending in a huge way across Medan. V60 brewing was all the rage, and coffee bars like Gerobak Kopi City enjoyed exploding popularity. But now trends are changing.
“V60 coffee connoisseurs are not coming as much as they used to,” the cafe owner tells me. “Coffee drinkers, especially young people, prefer to drink mixed coffees, such as iced milk coffee, or hot milk coffee, or coffee with a mixture of (liquid) palm sugar and chocolate.”
Coffee bar owners across the planet just nodded their heads in recognition. As in Northern Sumatra, so goes the world.
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In Indonesia, Coffee Trends Meet Changing Cultural Norms With Delicious Results by Tonggo Simangunson
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