BALI, Indonesia — Starbucks celebrates the journey of coffee from seed-to-cup by opening its largest destination in Southeast Asia – the Starbucks Dewata Coffee Sanctuary. The one-of-a-kind Coffee Sanctuary demonstrates Starbucks Indonesia’s coffee leadership in partnership with licensee PT Sari Coffee Indonesia, building upon 16 years of innovation in design, customer experience and community impact.
The store pays tribute to the important role that Indonesia, the fourth largest Arabica coffee growing region in the world, plays in bringing Starbucks customers the highest quality coffees, including the popular single-origin coffee from Sumatra. Sumatra coffee has been a staple offering at Starbucks since 1971.
“We began sourcing Indonesian coffees more than four decades ago and have always been struck by the sense of community and care for the coffee journey at every step,” said Kevin Johnson, ceo, Starbucks Coffee Company.
“The Starbucks Dewata Coffee Sanctuary amplifies our passion for the coffee journey, our ongoing commitment to Indonesia’s rich coffee culture, and our tireless pursuit of fostering moments of connection between our partners and customers. The Coffee Sanctuary marks the tenth Starbucks Reserve Bar store in Indonesia, one of 185 stores around the world, with the majority in Asia. This is Starbucks at its best, and we are proud to open the doors of this unique experience in one of Southeast Asia’s most dynamic markets.”
Designed as a coffee sanctuary, the expansive 20,000 square foot store beautifully highlights local craftsmanship and culture alongside premium coffee in this one-of-a-kind coffee experience, a sort of “origin-centered version” of the Roasteries, igniting all five senses.
Visitors enter through an arabica coffee farm, try their hand at coffee bean de-pulping and washing during harvest season, dry and rake green coffee beans, visit budding seedlings in the nursery, take in the store’s locally-inspired design featuring traditional Balinese craft and Indonesian art, and enjoy the more than 100 Dewata-exclusive handcrafted beverages, food and merchandise, including the Lavender Latte.
“Bali has an envied reputation as one of Asia’s top travel destinations and Indonesia is one of coffee’s most extraordinary coffee origin regions, so we’re excited to invite customers here to ignite their senses and explore the seed-to-cup coffee journey at this unique Coffee Sanctuary,” said Anthony Cottan, director, Starbucks Indonesia, at PT Sari Coffee Indonesia Limited.
“We’re very pleased to further strengthen the longstanding partnership between Starbucks and PT Sari Coffee Indonesia with this truly one-of-a-kind Starbucks store, inspired by and filled with the finest examples of Indonesian art, design and craftsmanship.”
A Sensory Coffee Journey
Located in Bali’s up-and-coming premium retail district on Sunset Road, the Coffee Sanctuary provides a carefully curated series of interactive experiences.
As customers enter, they’ll be greeted at the concierge reception and then guided through a working, 1,000 square foot coffee tree farm, the size of a typical Indonesian farm. Customers will continue their journey through contemporary Balinese landscaping, passing coffee plants and a de-pulping station before trying their hand at washing, drying and raking green coffee beans. Inside, the expansive Starbucks Reserve™ bar offers customers an intimate experience to taste Starbucks Reserve small-batch coffees, while the core bar offers Starbucks signature core beverages.
Located on the second floor is the seedling nursery, a greenhouse canopied by panes of glass to create an open-air experience. Here, customers can touch the first stages of the seed-to-cup journey, as well as deepen their understanding of the art of tending to coffee plants alongside a local Balinese farmer. In the adjoining tasting room, customers’ tastebuds will come alive as they enjoy coffee as coffee quality professionals do, without a filter – simply coffee and water – to draw out the flavors that set each cup apart.
For those looking for more, visitors can engage with an interactive video wall and hear how coffee is planted, processed, roasted, shipped and brewed into a delicious cup of espresso. On the second floor, a dedicated media room features two synchronized video walls, showcasing the work of the Starbucks Farmer Support Center (FSC) in Sumatra and agronomist, Dr. Surip Mawardi’s, work with Indonesian coffee farmers.
Connecting to Coffee Through Local Design
The Sanctuary was designed as an homage to Indonesia’s rich culture and coffee heritage. The store’s expansive interior was inspired by traditional Balinese houses with free-flowing, connected rooms that promote discovery from one space to the next.
The store’s interior was designed in partnership with local craftspeople and artists with one goal: tell the story of coffee in Indonesia. This is brought to life by a wood carving depicting the country’s six coffee growing regions’ local culture and architecture. A two-story mural in the courtyard pays tribute to local farmers who carefully nurture and protect the beans each step of their journey to Starbucks.
On the main floor, Starbucks partners (employees) welcome customers to the 13-meter teak Starbucks Reserve bar, drawing inspiration from Bali’s terraced rural landscapes, where customers can taste some of Starbucks rarest coffee offerings. Across the store, eyes are drawn to the living wall filled with flora from the region, situated behind the core bar designed to remind customers of Bali’s ocean waves which are replicated on the layered red-brick exterior façade.
Starbucks Commitment to Coffee Communities
Starbucks is dedicated to working with farmers in Indonesia to ethically and sustainably bring high-quality Indonesian coffee to the world, and today, the company is the largest buyer of Indonesian arabica coffee.
In 2015, Starbucks opened the Farmer Support Center (FSC) in Berastagi, North Sumatra where Starbucks agronomists led by Dr. Mawardi, conduct research to develop disease-resistant coffee varietals in an effort to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product through the Sustainable Coffee Challenge. The Sumatra FSC is one of nine globally, including China, which offers open-source agronomy assistance and support for regional coffee farmers to improve the productivity and sustainability of their coffee trees.
Starbucks Indonesia and the Sumatra FSC have donated more than 330,000 coffee seedlings, along with technical assistance, to smallholder farmers to-date. Through locally driven initiatives to support coffee tree replanting, Starbucks plans to donate 100,000 seedlings annually in partnership with the FSC.
Since 2006, The Starbucks Foundation has provided more than $4 million dollars to support farming communities and promote education, water, sanitation and health (WASH) programs across Indonesia. In 2018, The Foundation provided grants to Lutheran World Relief to support women-led community health and hygiene programs for 2,100 households in Sumatran coffee-producing villages over the next three years and to CARE to support economic empowerment for women tea workers and community WASH programs in West Java over the next two years.
Today, Starbucks Indonesia delivers the Starbucks Experience across 370 stores where nearly 4,500 partners proudly wear the green apron. The Dewata Coffee Sanctuary marks the first Starbucks Reserve Bar in Bali and its tenth in Indonesia as Starbucks continues to elevate the coffee journey for customers across the market.
