Healthy soil is the foundation of quality coffee. We focus on building soil fertility by returning organic matter to the ground, protecting it from erosion, and supporting the microorganisms that keep the ecosystem working.

Building Fertility

We return coffee processing by-products back to the soil instead of treating them as waste. We create our own compost on-site from the outer layer of the coffee cherry (exocarp). We mix it with rice husk and manure we source from local farmers, add beneficial microorganisms, and let it ferment. Using materials from the local area means the microorganisms are already adapted to our soil and climate, helping them work more effectively. During processing, the thin inner layer of the bean (silverskin) is separated and spread as mulch around plants to keep moisture in and suppress weeds. This approach keeps nutrients cycling through the farm and cuts down our need for outside inputs.

Protecting the Topsoil

Kintamani's steep slopes and heavy rainfall mean erosion is a real risk. To protect the topsoil, we use terraces called "gulud" (1.0-1.5 meters wide) built along the land's contour. They slow down water runoff, help water soak in, and stop soil from washing away. The root systems from our agroforestry plantings help too, holding soil in place. We manage weeds by hand or with mulch instead of herbicides. It takes more work, but herbicides would kill the soil microorganisms we're trying to build up.

Why It Matters

Soil health isn't just about avoiding damage. It's about building fertility that lasts. When soil microbes are healthy, organic matter breaks down the way it should, nutrients move through the system, and plants get stronger. 

This matters for the long term too. Soil with good organic matter and active biology handles climate stress better, holds water when it's dry, and bounces back after heavy rain. We're not just thinking about this harvest. We're building soil that will grow quality coffee for years to come.

Pest management on our processing area starts before we see pests. We build resilience from the ground up because healthy soil grows strong plants. Our mix of coffee trees, fruit trees, and shade species creates balance and attracts beneficial insects that handle pest control and pollination naturally. We also choose coffee varieties suited to Kintamani and Batukaru's conditions, so plants can fight off disease on their own.

Active Monitoring and Natural Solutions

We follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and check plants daily for pests and diseases. If harmful pests like coffee berry borer (CBB) show up, farmers manually remove and destroy affected berries right away to stop it from spreading. We also set up pheromone traps to help us track pest numbers and catch problems early.

We use natural solutions: organic treatments, beneficial insects, and compost that keeps plants healthy without damaging the ecosystem.

Training and Knowledge-Sharing

Training is a key part of our pest management. We work with farmers, local agricultural authorities, and the Department of Agriculture to share knowledge on pest identification, monitoring techniques, and natural control methods. This helps everyone catch problems early and manage them effectively.

By combining prevention, daily checks, natural treatments, and healthy farm ecosystems, we protect coffee plants, support biodiversity, and keep producing high-quality, sustainable coffee.

Our processing area use an agroforestry system where coffee grows alongside fruit and shade trees with different canopy layers, mirroring a natural forest. This setup helps us produce high-quality coffee while building better soil, supporting more biodiversity, and keeping pests under control.

Respecting Traditions

Our processing in Manikliyu Village, Kintamani sit between 900 and 1,500 meters above sea level. Temperatures run 15–25°C, with high rainfall and a clear dry season—the ideal conditions for arabica. Farmers here have grown citrus and coffee together for generations. They've seen how the plants work well together: citrus gives shade, the roots complement each other, and together they act as a layered system, similar to a forest. Farmers here believe this method of intercropping contributes to Kintamani coffee’s distinctive bright acidity and citrus notes.

What Grows Together

Our agroforestry system combines different tree species, each with a specific role. In Batukaru, gamal (Gliricidia sepium) provides permanent shade and fixes nitrogen in the soil. When we prune these trees, the leaves and branches return to the soil as organic matter. In Kintamani, citrus and banana serve as productive shade—they generate income while supporting the coffee. Banana plants retain moisture in the soil and their fallen leaves break down to add nutrients. Wild jungle fowl nest under these canopies, foraging for pests and naturally fertilizing the soil.

These species work together to strengthen the coffee, build up the soil, and support farmer livelihoods.

Natural Benefits

Having multiple species creates resilience. The plants grow stronger because they're not competing for the same resources. Roots at different depths improve soil fertility, organic matter goes back into the ground, and the balanced system means pests and diseases remain low.

Economic and Environmental Benefits

Agroforestry uses existing farmland better without expanding into new areas. Trees store carbon, hold water, and stop erosion. Farmers get income from coffee and fruit, keeping biodiversity intact while growing quality specialty coffee.

This is how we farm permanently, working with approximately 100 smallholder farmers in Kintamani on leased agricultural land. We partner with Bumiterra to monitor biodiversity and track environmental outcomes, making sure our practices deliver real results.

In 2023, we launched the 'Tanamera Coffee Body Scrub' in partnership with Sensatia, an internationally-recognised skincare brand born on the east coast of Bali, Indonesia. Through this collaboration, coffee grounds from our roasting process were given a second life, repurposed into a luxurious skincare product.

As two passionate Indonesian companies, Tanamera's partnership with Sensatia is built on shared values, with both brands committed to their own community empowerment and environmental initiatives. Since its founding in 2000, Sensatia has been producing healthy skincare products using pure, natural ingredients – which is where our specialty coffee comes in.

Pure Arabica coffee beans are brewed everyday across our roastery and coffee shops in Bali, and rather than let the nutrient-rich grounds go to waste, they are collected and sent to Sensatia's state-of-the-art facility in Jasri, East Bali. These beans are processed, thoroughly tested to ensure hygiene of the raw materials, and then enriched with papaya extract, jicama extract and shea butter. The result is a luscious, skin-reviving body scrub infused with the natural fragrance of our Indonesian coffee beans.

Combined, these natural ingredients deliver a wealth of benefits to the skin and body:-

• The coffee grounds act as a natural exfoliant, gently buffing away dead skin cells to reveal soft and healthy skin underneath.

• The caffeine-rich cream helps to stimulate blood flow to the skin, promoting circulation which helps in reducing the appearance of cellulite and stretch marks.

• The shea butter, papaya extract and jicama extract promote skin health further through their hydrating, moisturising and anti-inflammatory benefits.

"Driven by the initiative to reduce waste, this collaboration has resulted in a high-quality skincare product. Not only rich in benefits for maintaining skin health, the collaborative product is also environmentally friendly with the use of repurposed coffee grounds as natural ingredients in the scrub," said Michael R. Lorenti Jr., CEO and Founder of Sensatia. 

Through this partnership, Whilst there are several ways to repurpose used coffee grounds, such as natural fertilisers and compost to enrich agricultural land, this partnership with Sensatia has been an enlightening example of how sustainable innovation and effective partnership can lead to substantial value-creation. This upcycling initiative has reframed our relationship with waste, seeing a disposable by-product being transformed into a high-quality skincare product, sold nationwide.

Our Tanamera Coffee Scrub is available for purchase at our Online Shop or any of our stores in Indonesia.

To ensure that our coffee capsule customers can enjoy a cup of Tanamera, guilt-free, we use the world's first bio-based capsule, certified for both home and industrial composting, degrading in 26 weeks. Utilising this sustainable innovation means balancing convenience with a clear conscience.

Coffee capsule machines, also known as single-serve coffee machines, are a steadily growing market globally, with consumers attracted to the convenience of an easy-to-make espresso, whether at home or in their business. Market research estimates tens of billions of coffee pods are sold every year, with the market valued at US$ 91 billion in 2024, and projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.32% by 2030 (Grand View Research).

This growing popularity is certainly reflected in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, where households, offices and even the hospitality industry have adopted using single-serve machines – they are now a mainstay from corporate buildings in the capital to the guest rooms of luxury Bali resorts. As it is our mission to champion Indonesia's specialty coffee, we felt it was imperative to make Tanamera available for a diverse range of preparation methods, including coffee capsule machines.

Despite their popularity, the coffee pod and capsule industry is rife with environmental issues. The global footprint of annual coffee capsule waste is said to be around 576,000 metric tons — the combined weight of about 4,400 school buses (mongabay.com). It takes an estimated 500 years for a plastic coffee pod to degrade in a landfill, and this does not account for the potential greenhouse gases emitted by the decomposing coffee grounds still inside each capsule.

Even with recycling campaigns run by major companies, the recycling rate was estimated at a best-case scenario of 32%, many falling below this number, and even then, the cost and energy expenditure of separating coffee and capsule, then processing the material, would negate the potential environmental benefits. In 2016, the city of Hamburg, Germany, outright banned coffee pod-use, seeing the efforts to manage environmental impacts effectively not worth the intended outcome.

As such, at Tanamera Coffee Indonesia, we wanted to enter this growing market but not at the cost of the environment, which put us on the search for the most sustainable coffee capsule option available – this led us to Capsul'in Zero Impact.

This is the world's first biobased coffee capsule, developed by the highly-innovative, Luxembourg-based company, Capsul'in Pro. The Nespresso-compatible capsules are made from renewable plant-based materials (4-stars OK biobased certified by TÜV Austria), with no GMO, PLA, aluminium, or fossil fuel-derived plastic.

Since founding in 2013, we've maintained a zero-deforestation policy. Our coffee farms operate outside government-protected conservation zones and High Conservation Value (HCV) areas. We grow our coffee on already established agricultural land and we're committed to increasing biodiversity, working with farmers to plant diverse tree and plant species while protecting wildlife.

Quality coffee requires healthy land. That means building up and protecting the ecosystems that support it – the soil, water, plants, and animals that work together as one system. That's why we reject practices like forest clearing, which goes against our core beliefs and leads to biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and carbon emissions. 

Chemical-Free Farming

Protecting biodiversity starts with how we farm. No synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers are used in the production of our coffee. Instead, we mimic nature, generating minimal waste by returning organic matter back into the soil. This protects the ecosystems found within the farms and the farmers who work the land. 

Wildlife Protection

Our farms enforce a strict no-hunting policy, creating a safe space for wildlife. This results in diverse bird populations, healthy insect activity, and mammals moving freely through the landscape. We've documented 30 different wildlife species across our farms, including the critically endangered Sunda Pangolin (Manis javanica). Wild native honey bees are found across our farms, serving as essential pollinators for our agroforestry system and supporting the broader ecosystem. They help improve the quality and quantity of harvests across our coffee and other flowering crops.

Monitoring and Restoration

We partner with Bumiterra, an environmental organization, to monitor ecosystem health and implement restoration programs where needed. Through this partnership we’ve achieved:

1. 921 trees planted across 30 native species
2. 2 hectares of degraded land restored
3. 16.15 tons of carbon offset
4. 30 wildlife species documented

Why This Matters

Biodiversity isn't separate from coffee quality; it's fundamental to it. Healthy ecosystems provide natural pest control, improve soil fertility, and create resilience against climate stress. The same volcanic soils that give Balinese coffee its distinctive flavor profile rely on healthy ecosystems to maintain their richness.

We work with approximately 100 smallholder farms in Manikliyu Village, Kintamani. Farmers like Wayan Nengah, who’s worked with us since the beginning, show what's possible when quality and environmental practices work together. Through hands-on training, selective harvesting, processing techniques, and understanding the land, we help farmers see that protecting biodiversity isn't just good for the environment. It improves yields, quality, and long-term farm resilience.

Our Kintamani coffee consistently scores 83-84 points, meeting international specialty coffee standards. This proves what we've known all along: you can't separate environmental practices from coffee quality. The farmers we work with know that cutting corners on biodiversity means cutting corners on coffee quality.

Our goal isn't just to avoid harm. It's to actively improve the land we farm. Every hectare we restore, every tree we plant, every animal species we document—these aren't just sustainability metrics. They're investments in the future of Indonesian specialty coffee.

At Tanamera Coffee Indonesia, we are constantly searching for creative solutions to more sustainably manage our used coffee grounds. Of course, this natural, organic waste by-product would certainly be of use in the agricultural sector, but we thought to explore new avenues that could elevate its value and somehow bring it back into the Tanamera story.

This brought us to Manakala Living, an Indonesian homeware brand known for their artisanal approach to ceramicware and crockery, with a distinct charm and style. Manakala works closely with brands to create bespoke ceramicware in line with each brand's tastes and direction.

This is when Tanamera Coffee approached the studio to create one-of-a-kind coffee mugs, that has built into them the very essence of our beans. That's right, our used coffee grounds were folded and moulded into the clay to make our bespoke mugs, designed and created by Manakala Living.

Through this unique artistic collaboration, we wanted to explore material innovations and possibilities, finding new solutions to waste that diverted them from landfills or improper disposal elsewhere. The result is an artisanal, sustainable coffee mug, made from coffee! 

The mug's off-white cream colour with matte finish, contrasts the visible coffee ground specks that embellish the clay, giving it a rustic, speckled stoneware look. For real coffee afficionados out there, we know that there's no idea more enticing than drinking coffee out of coffee – and so our Environmentally Friendly Mugs are available online as official Tanamera Merchandise.

Available at nearby outlets and online platforms.