The Prosperous Land of Gayo: The history of coffee as part of a business |

Before starting to plant coffee at the end of the 19th century, the Gayo people farmed in rice fields or gardens planted with vegetable-producing plants (Afadhal, et al., 2008: 169-170). Even now, although coffee is a prime commodity, other agricultural plants are still planted. In subsequent developments, coffee became the livelihood of the Gayo people. Coffee is considered the “life and death” of the Gayo people.

With coffee, daily needs become easier to fulfill because the commodity is highly favored in both local and international markets. When the coffee harvest began to be exported to European and American countries, Gayo farmers were not only able to meet their daily needs, but they also began to live in economic glory.

This achievement certainly did not happen suddenly. According to a number of old records and confessions from Gayo elders, initially there were indeed many coffee plants but no one realized that coffee beans could be processed into a fresh drink of higher value. In Gayo: Society and Culture, Snouck Hurgronje reveals that initially the Gayo people only knew how to process coffee leaves into tea.

In line with Hurgronje, the old people in Gayo explained about Robusta coffee leaves that were roasted and then brewed in hot water. Before being drunk, it was mixed with palm sugar. This went on at least from 1939 to the 1960s (Khalisuddin et al., 2012).

"Even if there were people who planted coffee trees at that time, only the leaves were used to boil as tea-colored drinking water. While the coffee fruit was only used as a fruit drink because it tasted sweet. Entering the 1960s, the people of Central Aceh began to be interested in cultivating coffee plants, until 1975 to 1980s, coffee cultivation in Central Aceh became a new business that was very interesting for the community, so since then all people in the Gayo highlands have started replacing sugar cane plants with coffee "(Khalisuddin., et al., 2012: 104).

Now, almost all Gayo people farm coffee. Both modern and traditional. Both making it a livelihood or a secondary/side income source. However, along the way, many Gayo people left their jobs to focus on growing coffee.

This happened when coffee became so prospective because the profits were more than adequate; when Gayo coffee was increasingly growing in value at the world level. A brighter future began to appear in 2011.

That year, Gayo coffee had become a special commodity traded on the international market. Those who used to farm in the fields or become fishermen on Lake Lut Tawar, then started planting coffee.[]

To be continued…

Tourists on the shores of Lake Laut Tawar, Takengon, Central Aceh, Indonesia.