In mid 1995 a series of searches were planned to enter the Mandailing highlands to locate any surviving Arabica coffee trees of the cultivar Typicathen which Dutch farmers introduced into this highland area back in 1835.
Albert Taylor, an Australian from Wollongong on the NSW south coast, teamed up with two local Indonesians, his wife Anita and her father, Bapak.
Bapak, who grew up in the area and recalled seeing coffee plants before the Japanese invasion, lead the searches. Further, their research based on history books and information from the local villages pointed them high into the mountainous jungles of Mandailing.
With the established Dutch plantations long-gone, their only hope of finding these original plants was in the wild – hopefully seeds had been scattered by animals or birds, and perhaps a few coffee trees had survived in the jungle.
Coffee plants are not known for their resilience, and without care are easily overgrown and strangled within a matter of months or years by native jungle flora. In their search they covered huge tracks of land concentrating on the altitudes between 1100m and 1400m.
By the turn of 1998, almost three years since they began their hunt, they surrendered. The jungle had won. The group now turned their attention to establishing a modern Arabica coffee plantation.
With all the searching that they had done, the group had a great knowledge of the immediate area. They had investigated numerous potential locations for a plantation, and decided on a 200 hectare area in the central Mandailing province.
It was an ideal site, facing the right direction for sun, and at the right altitude for premium Arabica coffee to thrive. It seemed to Albert and the team the perfect site for their new venture - and so it progressed. The local village leaders agreed and the land secured. By mid 1998 PT Coffee Prima was registered. Within a few months they had planted thousands of high quality 20th century Arabica seedlings.
