Thailand Doi Pangkhon

About this coffee

Doi Pangkhon has come a long way in a short time. We partnered with Beanspire (exporter) / This Side Up (importer) and  this farmer group in Chiang Rai in 2016. While the coffee is still relatively new to the international market, the 300 Akha Hilltribe farmers at Doi Pangkhon (which means Timberland Peak) have been growing and milling coffee for almost 40 years in this area, respecting their old traditions and their natural environment.
The mineral-rich soil and next-to-perfect growing conditions give not just their old varieties, but even their Catimor shrubs a surprising complexity and spicy punch. Each farmer typically produces about 1-2 tons of parchment. All of the villagers belong to Akha Hilltribe and they are very young for coffee farmers, mostly aged 25-35 years old. This is something very unique about Thailand as an origin, since it’s an upper middle income country. It is a coffee growing industry that’s actually working and attractive to the next generation, relative to other origins.

One of only a few groups in Thailand to employ a Kenya-style washed, double fermentation: all coffee is hand picked, depulped, dry fermented for 48 hours, wet fermented for 8 hours, washed with mountain water, then sun dried on raised bamboo beds. The result is a very clean coffee with typical ‘Asian’ spicy flavors, but combined with a sweetness not often found in other Asian coffees.