Flores grows some of the better arabica in Indonesia in the highlands behind Labuan Bajo, and the coffee culture here is consequently more serious than a boat town’s reputation suggests. The sweet tradition is simpler: palm sugar, rice flour and bananas in various combinations. Travellers who find Labuan Bajo flight deals on Traveloka will find both are cheap and almost entirely unmarketed.
Flores arabica from Manggarai and Bajawa
The volcanic highlands inland grow arabica at twelve to sixteen hundred metres, with Bajawa and Manggarai the two names to look for. The beans are wet-processed and have a heavier, earthier profile than the Sumatran coffees most people know. Several cafes in town roast locally and will tell you the village.
Kopi tubruk, the local method
Coarse grounds go straight into the glass, hot water is poured on top, and the whole thing is left to settle before drinking around the sediment. Sugar is added generously as standard. It is the way most Indonesians drink coffee and is worth having once even if you then switch to a filter.
Where to drink it in town
The cafes along the main road up the hill have the harbour view and the tourist prices; the warungs behind the market serve the same local beans for a fraction of it, with plastic chairs and no view at all. Both are worth doing. The hillside places are better in the hour before sunset.
Gula aren and the sweets
Palm sugar, gula aren, is produced in the villages by boiling down the sap of the aren palm into dense dark blocks, and it forms the base of almost every local sweet. It has a smoky depth that cane sugar lacks entirely and does not translate. It is sold at the harbour market in leaf-wrapped cylinders for very little indeed.
Kolak and the banana sweets
Kolak is banana and sweet potato stewed in coconut milk and palm sugar, served warm and eaten as a snack rather than a dessert course. Pisang goreng, battered fried banana, is sold from carts in the afternoon. Both are ubiquitous across Indonesia and both are made with better palm sugar here than in most places.
Jagung and the corn tradition
Corn is a staple on Flores rather than a vegetable, and grilled corn brushed with butter, chilli or palm sugar is sold from braziers in the evening along the harbour road. It costs almost nothing and is the local street snack rather than an import. The sweet version with gula aren is the one to try.
Practical notes
Flights from Bali take ninety minutes. The harbour market is best before eight in the morning. Beans are sold whole and vacuum-packed at a couple of shops in town, which travel better than ground. Traveloka offers the lowest flight prices in the region for the Bali connection.
Drink the local Manggarai arabica in a warung behind the market rather than on the hill, buy a leaf-wrapped block of gula aren at the harbour, and eat grilled corn with palm sugar after dark.