ABSTRACT
This chapter provides many interesting features of the colonial coffee industry in Papua New Guinea. The original white planters were attracted to the production of coffee because of the low level and inexpensive nature of the means of production. The alienated land was obviously valuable but, due to the low and regulated price at which they acquired it and the fact that transactions in land soon ceased to be legal, it became difficult to put a value on plantation land. The clampdown on land did not seem to adversely affect the original settlers in the pioneering phase. The principal argument in favour of the wet method is the higher quality, superior taste and therefore higher market value of the washed Arabica bean. The amount of capital invested in machinery clearly depends on the stage to which processing is done on the production unit. Weeds are usually removed by hand, either spaded out or slashed with a bush knife.
