The tastes of Chiang Rai’s rich soil
Farmers in Doi Pangkhon, Timberland Peak have been growing and milling coffee for over 40 years but have never exported or experimented with processing as they do now with Fuadi. Competing in the international market also means taking the opportunity to work towards sustainability in all aspects. Fuadis' strong relationship with the Merlaeku brothers has given them the trust, the tools, and the know-how to detect a lifelong project in coffee. Together with Beaspire, we work with about 20 families from Doi Pangkhon.
CULTIVARS:
Catuai, Typica, Chiang Mai, SJ133
ALTITUDE:
1,250-1450meters above sea level.
PROCESSING:
Natural: cherries were floated and laid on bamboo raised beds in a one-inch layer. Under-ripe and fermented cherries throughout the drying process were sorted, and the cherries were raked multiple times each day. After the cherries were dried, they're bagged to cure for two months before milling at Beanspires’ dry mill.
Kenya-style Washed: this coffee went through a double staged fermentation, which included dry fermentation, followed by wet fermentation, and soaking. Coffee was dried first on raised bamboo beds for at least 14 days, and lowland until the desired mouisture was achieved .
NOTABLE:
Doi Pangkhon, in Chiang Rai, has 300 households, each typically producing about 1-2 tons of parchment. In the past years, Fuadi and his team has worked with each house individually on their wet processing. They’ve also bought their parchment before hulling and grading at their mill.
TASTIFY™ CUPPING NOTES :
Browse through our Tastify Archives on Google Drive.
PHOTO GALLERY:
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Doi Pangkhon
Beanspire has been actively assisting the farming families of Doi Pangkhon to improve the quality of their coffee. For our "Pangkhon" microlot, we specifically work with two entrepreneurial siblings of the Becheku family from Akha hilltribe: Ata and Pupae. Ata is a 30-year old oldest of the three siblings whose entrepreneurial spirit and leadership is a force for change for his community. Pupae is Ata’s 26-year old sister, who had worked in both Korea and Taiwan, before returning home to Doi Pangkhon to help her brother produces coffee. Pupae speaks fluent Chinese and is also a Chinese language teacher at a local school. The young Bechekus are third generation coffee farmers at Doi Pangkhon, and they represent one of the most inspiring aspects of the Thai coffee scene. the future of the entire specialty industry around the world where farmers and their children are quitting coffee works for other more lucrative opportunities. These guys are returning home to work on coffee because they see a bright future in it and they are farming coffee by choice, not because they lack other opportunities.
Doi Pangkhon’s coffee farms, at 1250-1500 masl., contain Caturra, Catimor, Bourbon and Typica cultivars. Such a mixture of cultivars allows farmers to mitigate various risks. For example, Bourbon and Typica tend to be weaker plants and sometime come under attacks of left rust and other diseases, but great cupping potentials. Caturra and especially Catimor are more rust resistance and higher yield. Stunningly, because of the famously fragrant soil in the Chang Rai area, even these hybrid varieties are capable of producing complex, slightly fruity and prominently spicy cups.
Under the Bechekus’ direction, the majority of farmers at Doi Pangkhon (300 families) have switched to processing their coffee using a Kenya-style double washed method. This involves pulping coffee cherries at night and leaving the parchment to ferment in a tank without the use of water for one night. And then on the second night, the parchment is then fermented again, but this time by soaking it under water. This process is also known as a double fermentation washed method, commonly seen in Africa. The parchment is then dried on bamboo-raised beds until the right moisture content before getting hulled, size sorted, density sorted and hand sorted to remove all the defects. This unique processing is rarely seen in other coffee growing regions of Thailand and it results in a balanced and clean cup with mild acidity. Yet this is merely the beginning of the future of Thai coffee and coffee from Doi Pangkhon, This Side Up plans to continue working with this community to keep improving the quality of their coffee.
In 2017, Don Pangkhon perfected their Kenya style double fermentation method and made an even cleaner cup, easily climbing a point on the SCA scale. A few farmers have also started to dry in a green house and we are building these green houses for more farmers next year. We are also proud to see that the farmers made some pretty impressive processing experiments: not just a beautiful and winey natural but a fruity honey and even some wine yeast fermented lots that will be used by Rob Clarijs when he competes in the New York Masters. In the past years, we worked with each house individually on their wet processing and bought their parchment before hulling and grading at our mill. This year, Beanspire invested in a wet mill, operated by a few of our partner producers who're all family, so the coop and Beanspire had more control of the process. Beanspire is now also able to buy cherries from outside the family, expanding the possibilities for the village in the future.