Description
Thai coffee?!?!? A rare origin in the US for specialty beans, but it turns out they grow a lot of coffee in Thailand. The specialty market has been growing, and the beans are getting better all the time. Similar to origins like India, but with more hybrid processing methods. These beans have a unique history and flavor.
We’ve been searching for good Thai coffee for quite some time; we had some friends in the field for a while, but every time we received samples, they tasted more like Robusta with some overpowering earthy notes, reminding me more of European-style espresso beans. We recently connected with Lanna Coffee (amazing people) to get some lots of their high-end, and in our opinion, more flavorful Arabica. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a feel-good project, run by wonderful people. This is a Honey Processed lot. This means that after harvesting, the coffee is pulped (the outer husk is removed), but it is left to dry with some or all of the mucilage (the “honey”) still attached to the bean. This method tends to impart more sweetness and body to the coffee than a washed process, creating a flavor profile that falls between a natural and a washed coffee, and enhancing the bean’s inherent sweetness.
Tasting Notes: A remarkably sweet coffee with a light acidity that is more reminiscent of lime. It has a very pleasant medium body in the cup. Notes of cocoa and chocolate stand out, complemented by a light touch of caramel. It has an interesting spicy finish, perhaps reminiscent of black tea, resulting in a very enjoyable and balanced cup.
Roasting Notes: This is an easy-to-roast bean, although, like its washed counterpart, it tends to have a bit more chaff than average. For most, this is not a coffee for light roasts. A medium to dark roast is recommended to fully develop its sweetness and chocolate notes. It’s better to err on the side of slightly darker than too light.
Doi Inthanon: This is a mountainous region comprised of numerous villages that have been cultivating coffee for many years. The villages in this area are very remote, with rugged and lush landscapes. Most farmers planted trees 10-15 years ago, but little came of it because there was no infrastructure to help them develop and process the coffee. Lanna Coffees’ first year working in this area was 2018, and their goal was to help develop the region and create cultivation infrastructure for the years to come. This is a pilot project for Lanna Coffee Co. The villages in this area are very small, without processing equipment, so they are combining the production of multiple villages to produce enough for export. Some villages still use a mortar and pestle to manually pulp the cherries!
Lanna Coffee:
“Thai coffee?” you might be wondering. After all, Thailand is far from a traditional coffee-growing region. Most of us are used to seeing coffees from places like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Colombia. But Thailand isn’t exactly where people think when they think about where their coffee comes from. So, what’s so special about Thai coffee? Why is it a mainstay of Lanna Coffee’s lineup?
For over a century, refugees fleeing political and social upheaval in China and Southeast Asia have migrated to northern Thailand. Stateless, these refugees live in poverty with few opportunities for a better life. It’s not within the power of any one person to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, but when we work together, we can do great things. When Lanna was founded, we had one thing in mind: service. How could we serve our coffee farmers as well as we serve our customers? We wanted to roast premium coffee from a non-traditional region, but we also wanted to ensure our business could improve lives in the communities we source from. To achieve this, we partnered with a like-minded NGO: the Integrated Tribal Development Foundation (ITDF).
The ITDF is an organization committed to improving the lives of impoverished hill tribe communities “in many aspects of life, including clean water, sanitation, agriculture, education, health, and cash crops.” For the past 30 years, the ITDF has partnered with these communities to equip them with the training and equipment to produce exceptional coffee. Today, more than 40 villages are part of Thailand’s first certified Fairtrade coffee cooperative, immeasurably improving the lives of the people who live there. We are proud to say that Lanna Coffee is the largest purchaser of Thai coffee in the U.S. Thanks to your support, we have been able to demonstrate our commitment to Thai coffee and encourage
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