Coffee production in Thailand is a fairly young economic sector. It started off as part of the Thai King’s opium eradication project in the 1970s. Arabica coffee thrives under similar conditions as opium which is why it was selected as a substitution crop against the cultivation of the illicit plant. Today, Thailand is the third largest coffee producer in Asia and Fuadi Pitsuwan of Beanspire Coffee, the exporter for this lovely coffee, is an important champion of Thai coffee within Thailand and internationally as well.
 
Socio-Economic Kontext
 
As with so many of our coffees we are proud to buy this one through This Side Up in the Netherlands who have been partnering with Beanspire in Thailand since 2016. Thailand is an important origin in their view and here is why:
 
“Thailand is a middle-income country and has a thriving local coffee market. That means relatively high production costs for a relatively undemanding coffee market…. This Side Up sees an important opportunity to showcase Thai coffee to the world's specialty coffee scene, not despite but precisely because of the higher production prices and living standards. Exposure to the specialty coffee phenomenon in relatively stable economies like Costa Rica and Panama has made them leaders in innovation, labour and environmental protection - and equally importantly, has made coffee farming, even on a micro-mill scale, lucrative for the next generation. On a larger scale, the gigantic coffee traders will eventually run out of cheap places to source bad coffee, and specialty coffee will surely continue to grow and disperse. These factors, in our view, mean that equality, quality focus and integration will slowly but inevitably become the future of the entire coffee producing world.
 
As a global society, we should be getting used to consumer prices that reflect a higher level of country development and social justice. We therefore have the ambitious goal to demonstrate, however small we are, that by kickstarting an increase in exposure and quality investment, stable Thailand and its young generation of coffee entrepreneurs could enter into a race to the top, become a country known internationally for its superb coffees - and in time set an example for all of East Asia.”
 
Asor Merlaeku from Huai Mae Liam village in the Northern most province of Chang Rai is the young producer of this particular lot of coffee. Fuadi calls him “one of the most sophisticated and innovative farmers he works with”. The white honey process Asor used on this coffee means that a small percentage of the fruit pulp is left on the coffee seeds after harvest and during the fermentation stage of the post-harvest processing this lends the coffee an extra sweetness in addition to its otherwise very clean and complex flavour profile