Roteps WS 2021

Roteps Wet Mill is a large scale wet mill, common for the PNG Western Highlands context. Very few wet mills operate high in the mountains where you find the homes and farms of the majority of smallholder coffee producers. The owner of Roteps, Paul, sends out a strong team of cherry collection agents and their trucks on a daily basis to collect from known smallholders and small estates within a 20 mile radius of the wet mill, which is located in Kuli, along the Highlands Highway east of the city of Mt. Hagen. As is common in PNG, a large, expansive drying field holds long tarps for drying, and the dry parchment is stored at a warehouse on site. The coffee is then sent for final milling into the town of Goroka before export out of the port of Lae. Premiums are paid to both agents and smallholders for premium ripe cherry, to reduce the number of lower grade lots he needs to dry separately. To keep ripe cherry from fermenting in the back of the truck before milling, most trucks can only complete one or two routes up a single valley and back. Paul's wet mill, founded in 2013, is 100% pre-financed by our export partner in PNG, meaning we have a much higher level of control over cherry collection and we can pick the best lots coming out of this operation.