Hideo Gunawan

Image 1: Hideo Gunawan is 26 years old – the youngest roaster I’ve ever met – and within him there are a lot of potentials to become a legendary coffee roaster.

Hideo Gunawan probably still remembers the law of Brownian Motion and knows the wavelength of gamma, or even dreams of writing his name on a piece of hair using nano technology. Hideo – born in Makasar and graduated with a Physics degree from Bandung Institute of Technology – has no intention to work in a field that demands him to wrestle with complex formulas as he had enough of it during his five years of studying in Bandung. Instead, he plunges himself into the world of coffee roasting, which is an ecstatic pleasure compared to working with numbers.

Image 2: Gayo. This is one of Hideo’s roasting results – the Gayo coffee – and I highly recommend it for those of you who enjoy Sumatran coffee. This is perhaps one of the best Gayo coffee I’ve ever tasted.

You can see Hideo’s roasting activity in one of the corners of Santa markets, on Cipaku street, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta. He has just started roasting and a roasting equipment manufactured in Jakarta is his current toy after he had previously tried his hands on William Edison’s seven million rupiah roasting machine. For Hideo – who has just started his business less than a month ago – regardless of its price, the quality of a roasting machine goes back to the man behind it. He believes that the locally made five thousand dollars roasting machine he bought will produce coffee that fulfills all the requirements needed to be commercialized. I can’t help but agreeing, of course; and I held back from publishing this article merely to wait on this coffee prodigy’s roasting result – in which I thought the result is worthy to be launched into the Indonesian coffee market.

Image 3: Coffee Tasting. This is Hideo in my crib, trying on his roasting results and brewing them in all kinds of methods; from espresso machine to drip, French press, the traditional tubruk-style and even Turkish.

The machine’s one-kilogram capacity makes it easy for him to perform kinds of experiments in his kiosk-wide personal coffee lab at Santa market. A variety of good-quality coffee – both local and international – had been roasted continuously in order to look for the perfect recipe that will be well-received by the market. But underneath it all, his passion to boldly step into the roasting profession is without challenges, moreover since the office job that he had previously lived proved to promise stability and an easy life. Hideo wants to do something that he loves, and he is already hooked into the roasting world as he has the taste and the knack needed for the job.

Image 4: A V6 Hario Champion. Hideo is the champion of the V60 competition which was held by a coffee community in Jakarta. The simplicity of his brewing recipe made him as the first prize.

Aside from treading a life as a roaster, Hideo has long been interested in brewing coffee using the Hario V60 cone type. He developed a protocol to brew coffee with a ratio of 8 grams of coffee, 140 grams of water, and a constant water temperature of 94 degrees celsius. You can practice Hideo’s unique method or my protocol, which is 10 grams of coffee for 150ml of water as a first step, water can be added to reduce the strength.

Hideo Gunawan – perhaps Indonesia’s first physicist who became a roaster – you can contact him by phone at 0811 4226813

Mungkin saja Hideo Gunawan masih mengingat hukum Brownian Motion, tahu panjang gelombang gamma, atau bercita-cita menuliskan namanya di selembar rambut dengan teknologi nano. Karena Hideo yang kelahiran Makasar adalah seorang lulusan Fisika dari perguruan teknik tinggi ternama di Indonesia, ITB, tapi ia tidak berniat bekerja pada bidang yang membuatnya harus bergelut dengan rumus nan rumit selama lima tahun berkuliah di kota Bandung. Setahun terakhir Hideo mendalami roasting kopi, sebuah kesenangan yang membuatnya bisa mencapai ekstasi ketimbang bergelut dengan rangkaian angka.

Anda bisa menemui aktifitas menggoreng kopi yang dilakukan oleh Hideo di salah satu sudut pasar Santa, jalan Cipaku, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta. Ia memang baru saja memulai dan sebuah alat roasting buatan salah satu pabrikan di Jakarta adalah mainan barunya setelah sebelumnya bergelut dengan mesin buatan William Edison yang harganya tujuh jutaan itu. Buat Hideo yang baru saja memulai usahanya kurang dari sebulan di lokasinya ini, sebuah mesin roasting berapapun harganya akan tergantung kepada operatornya. Jadi ia yakin jika alat roasting buatan lokal yang ia beli di bawah harga 50 juta tersebut akan menghasilkan kopi yang sudah memenuhi syarat untuk dikomersialkan.  Saya sependapat tentunya dan menunggu sekian hari sebelum mempublikasikan artikel ini semata untuk mencoba hasil gorengan anak muda ini dan menganggap sudah layak tayang di pasar kopi Indonesia.

Kapasitas yang satu kilogram membuatnya mudah melakukan berbagai percobaan di laboratorium kopinya di pasar Santa yang seluas kios biasa. Berbagai kopi baik dalam dan luar negeri sudah ia coba roasting dan secara terus menerus mencari racikan yang diterima oleh pasar. Tapi di balik semua itu, semangatnya untuk berani melangkah sebagai roaster bukan tanpa tantangan, apalagi pekerjaan kantoran yang sebelumnya ia lakoni sudah menjanjikan kemapanan. Hideo ingin melakukan sebuah pekerjaan yang ia sukai dan sudah menambatkan hatinya pada dunia roasting selain didukung oleh cita rasanya yang cukup sensitif sebagai bekal utama pekerjaan ini.

Selain menapai jalan sebagai roaster, Hideo sudah lama tertarik pada cara seduh kopi dengan menggunakan alat Hario tipe V60 yang kerucut itu. Ia mengembangkan sebuah qawa’idh fiqhiyah atau protokol dibidang seduh dengan rasio kopi sebanyak 8 gram, air 140 gram, serta temperatur air konstan 94 derajat celsius. Anda bisa mempraktekan cara Hideo yang berbeda dengan mazhab  atau cara yang biasa saya lakukan yakni  10 gram kopi untuk 150ml air sebagai langkah awal dan bisa ditambah air bila terlalu pekat.

Hideo Gunawan, mungkin fisikawan Indonesia pertama yang menjadi roaster dan Anda bisa menghubunginya di nomor telepon : 0811 4226813

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Image 5: 1 kg capacity. This is his local-made, 1-kg capacity roasting machine that Hideo uses everyday. 

*) Qawa’idh fiqhiyah is a term in the Islamic law that reiterates the standard operational worshipping procedure. So what does it have to do with coffee? To me, drinking coffee is amaliyah ibadah and isn’t making others and yourself happy, constituted as a noble deed? As the night grows older, my babbling becomes even more nonsensical, so I beg for your forgiveness… I do not wish to defy the religious law and end up like Lady Gaga – my favorite singer by the way – who has cancelled her show in Jakarta since her dance moves apparently undermine the Islamic values. Too bad really – I guess I should feel happy enough singing along to my iTunes – “Alejando… Alejandro…”

*) Qawa’idh fiqhiyah sebuah istilah dalam hukum Islam untuk petunjuk operasional sebuah ibadah. Terus apa hubungannya dengan kopi ? Ngopi buat saya adalah salah satu amaliyah ibadah,  menyenangkan diri sendiri dan orang lain bukankahkah perbuatan mulia ? Beribu maaf dan mohon dimaklumi, kadang semakin malam tulisan saya agak sedikit ngawur 🙂  … #berdo’a komat kamit semoga saya tak dicekal atau di fentung karena menuliskan istilah mulia ini sebagaimana rencana manggung Lady Gaga, penyanyi favorit ane.      

Alejandro, Alejandro …