Kintamani Coffee Country

The Kintamani highlands on the flanks of Mount Batur are cool enough for arabica, and Balinese farmers grow it in the same plots as citrus under a shared irrigation and cropping system, which is why the coffee often carries a faint citrus note. The road up from Ubud is lined with agrotourism plantations that walk you through the trees, roast in a pan over a wood fire and set out a tray of a dozen small cups: coffee, cocoa, ginseng, lemongrass and various teas. Almost all of them also sell civet coffee, luwak, which is the part worth thinking about before you arrive.

What you actually see

• Arabica among citrus - coffee interplanted with oranges in the same highland plots.
• Pan roasting - beans turned over a wood fire and ground by hand for demonstration.
• The tasting tray - a dozen small cups of coffee, cocoa and herbal infusions.
• Batur views - the volcano and its lake seen from the ridge above the plantations.

When to go

The dry season from April to October gives the clearest views of Batur from the ridge and the best chance of a dry walk through the trees. Mornings are better, since cloud builds over the volcano by early afternoon. Plantations open all day, and most tours out of Ubud stop at one around mid-morning, so arriving earlier or later avoids the buses.

Honest expectations

These plantations are sales operations first: the tasting is free, the luwak coffee is not, and shop prices run several times what the same beans cost in town. Caged civets are kept at many sites for show, which is worth knowing beforehand, since genuinely wild-collected luwak is rare. Most of the tasting tray is instant-quality infusion rather than coffee.

Nearby

Mount Batur and its crater lake are directly above; Ubud is an hour south.