Thailand Premium Smallholder – Mae Kha Jan – Washed Processed

Description

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Mae Kha Jan is located in Chiang Rai Province of Northern Thailand. Smallholder producers grow coffee in Chiang Rai’s high mountains and begin processing the coffee on their own farms, where they depulp, wet ferment for 12-24 hours, and fully wash the coffee. Most farmers dry their coffee on raised bamboo beds, others on patios, for 15–20 days.

Coffee farmers in Chiang Rai, on average, are 25-35 years old. Coffee farms in Thailand are accessible and coffee farming is profitable, making it an attractive business for young entrepreneurs. This is possible due to the history of coffee farming in Thailand, which began with an opium eradication project begun by the King of Thailand in the 1970’s. Efforts to reforest degraded land and introduce coffee and other crops to replace illicit cultivations proved extremely successful. Farmers’ mountain properties are thriving, with coffee of the Catuai, Typica, and local Chiang Mai varieties thriving in healthy production.

Tasting Notes: A good daily drinker with an exotic spin. These beans pull a bit of what I would consider the classic European style spice note. A bit peppery, a bit herbal, different but very tasty. Lighter roasts will show some lemony acidity and faint hints of spicy bakers chocolate, holds up but we found medium roasts to be our favorite and dark roasts to be quite tasty as well. Easier to drink medium to dark building the body and rich darker spice notes while muting up some of the more lemony floral aspects. Dark roasts will get pretty smoky but it keeps its smoother and richer tones qualifying it for a nice dark roast coffee.

Roasting Notes: Pretty easy bean to roast, even roasting with medium to low chaff, we liked to get some development past first crack but by no mean needs to be shiny or oily coming out of the roaster. The lighter you take it the more exotic the tones get. Letting it setup a couple days really improved the smoothness of the cup.

After farmers complete the first processing stages, coffee parchment is taken from farms to the Beanspire mill in Mae Kha Jan. The mill is one of the most advanced in Thailand, with a destoner, huller, and a gravity table for density sorting. Beanspire’s co-founders, Fuadi Pitswan and Jane Kittiratanapaiboon, are also part of the young generation moving the Thai coffee industry forward. They have built Beanspire to produce quality from the outset, passing all coffee through density and hand sorting multiple times to ensure quality and uniformity. Coffee is packed in triple layer bags for shipment: cotton bag as outer layer, High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) as middle layer, and GrainPro as inner layer. The HDPE bags help maintain moisture content, thus preserving quality for longer.

In addition to expertly growing specialty coffee, Thailand has a vibrant café and roasting scene. Thai cities are full of specialty coffee shops serving up the best coffee grown in country. Producers drink their own coffee, know how to make pour overs and lattes, and are excited to learn how roasters around the world will serve and share their coffee. Thai coffee is an all around success story, and continued coffee agriculture in the north ensures a sustainable future where crops continue to afford farmers fair livelihoods without the risk of violence. Community lots such as this one offer a collective benefit to the producers of Mae Kha Jan and Chiang Rai.

Elevation: 1300 masl

Varieties: Catuai, Typica, Chiang Mai