Coffee / กาแฟ

Coffee… The world’s most popular drink, the name is recognized around the world in almost any language. In Thai, it’s pronounced kāfæ (กาแฟ).

Experts have determined that coffee has some 800 discernible flavor characteristics — by comparison, wine only has about 400. (1)

Coffee is a significant cash crop for both producing- and consuming-countries. Thailand is the third largest producer in Asia (after Vietnam and Indonesia), and ranks 20th in exports, globally (2). Even so, Thailand is virtually unknown in coffee circles. Ninety-eight percent of Thailand’s production is robusta — only 2% is arabica. The robusta coffee is used widely in cheap, instant coffee. But the perception of Thai coffee is now starting to change.

80,000-85,500 tons of robusta coffee are produced annually in the South. Sixty percent of it is exported and the rest is mostly used in domestic production of instant (soluble) coffee (1). Arabica coffee, produced in the cooler highland areas of the Northern part of the country, comprises only 800-850 tons per year. It is used almost entirely in roasted and ground coffee for the domestic market.

From 1972-1979 The Thai/UN Crop Replacement and Community Development Project was implemented as a pilot project to explore the viability of replacing opium poppy cultivation with a variety of substitute crops and alternative sources of income, combined with related community development activities.

It was found that arabica coffee is a cash crop that can be promoted to replace opium in the long run and can provide high cash incomes, not only to poppy growing farmers, but to a large number of other farmers in the highlands as well. In the golden triangle region, on the mountains of Doi Tung and Doi Chang, conditions are ideal for growing lush fruit-laden coffee trees. The land and climate are perfectly suited for coffee growing; transport and storage of coffee is relatively easy and yields are good. And there is a strong global demand — and a growing domestic demand — for good-quality coffee. Thus arabica coffee is very appropriate and viable as a cash crop to replace opium in the highlands of Thailand. (3)

In years past, the Ahka hill tribes here earned a meager living growing opium. For many years, they lived in isolation. Many who could leave did so, to make money in the cities and get away from the pain of the opium trade: addiction, strife and criminal elements. Then,

In 1983 when His Majesty King Bhombol began the royal initiations to encourage crop substitutions to eliminate the opium cultivation and slash and burn agriculture that was destroying the environment, the king replaced their opium plants with the finest Arabica coffee plants. Thus, within the next decade, the hill tribes were the first to start cultivating coffee. Many farmers switched crops… and everything began to change. Now they produce a superb, highly-rated, high-altitude coffee. (4)

This began to help the northern Thai hill tribes in there struggle for equality and acceptance and to elevate the awareness and standards of coffee quality beyond fair trade. But discrimination still keeps them from rising out of poverty — at Kāfæ Mūl Cĥāng™, we aim to change that.

“Civet” coffee (“kopi lewak”, from beans excreted by civets), now drunk by the rich was one time consumed only by slaves. The farmers that first drank the coffee worked on large plantations, where they were forbidden to pick and use the fresh berries for there own use. So they were forced to pick the beans from the forest floor where civets had excreted them, undigested. They would pick the beans from dung and process them and secretly drink the coffee. (5) The beverage had a lower acidity, a lingering nutty flavor — you can taste the difference. Kopi lewak is now one of the most expensive coffees in the world. (6) However, many are concerned about the conditions under which civets are now kept and how they are fed coffee. Indeed, most civet coffee is no longer gathered in the ‘wild’ and is made from the excretions of civets that crammed into tiny cages and force-fed coffee.

Click here to continue to page 2 about our coffee, Kāfæ Mūl Cĥāng™ 

Click here to con-tinue to page 2 about Kāfæ Mūl Chāng™

Red-ripe coffee cherries and green coffee beans.

Robusta coffee ‘trees’ and leaves are larger than those of Arabica. Photo by Tim Keating

An Akha woman picks Arabica coffee grown organically, in the shade.

Ripe coffee cherries dried in the sun.

Dried ‘green’ coffee beans, prior to roasting.

A civet, used to produce “civet” coffee, kept in
a tiny cage. Photo by Tim Keating

Mul châng cherries after drying.

Robusta coffee grown in the full sun.

Photo by Tim Keating

References

1.Dictionary of Gourmet Coffee Tasting, Gourmet Coffee Lovers (http://www.gourmetcoffeelovers.com/dictionary-of-gourmet-coffee-tasting/) (retrieved 6/22/14).
2.International Coffee Organization, Coffee Prices (http://www.ico.org/prices/po.htm) (retrieved 6/22/14).
3.Angkasith, Pongsak, 2001, “Coffee Production Status and Potential of Organic Arabica Coffee in Thailand”, Chiang Mai University, Paper presented at the First Asian Regional Round-table on Sustainable, Organic and Speciality Coffee Production, Processing and Marketing, 26-28 Feb. 2001, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
4.“Establishment of Doikham”, Doi Kham Food Products Company, Ltd., website, http://www.doikham.co.th/aboutus_en.php (retrieved 2/15/14).
5.National Geographic Travelers Indonesia, November 2010, page 44.
6.Wikipedia, Kopi Luwak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak) (retrieved 8/31/14).