Our Barista Flo and Lina's journey to Thailand

Earlier last month, two of our passionate senior baristas (Flo and Lina) went on their first coffee origin road-trip and visited a few local prominent cafes in Changrai and Changmai. There is no experience like an origin trip for coffee lovers, something beyond just concepts of how coffee, as a fruit seed, gets into our cup. The farm (Doi Chaang) they visited is famous for the transformation of what used to be an opium plantation into a sustainable Arabica coffee haven, providing local villagers a more stable livelihood for their hand-picking harvest and processing labour. The local farmer Charlie gave them an informative tour through the plantations.

As they trudge up steep inclines between coffee trees bearing red and yellow cherries, they had noticed most of them are of the Typica and Yellow Catuai varieties. Charlie said that the surrounding macadamia trees are there to provide shades for the shorter coffee plants and as an additional produce to increase farmers' income. Consistent supply of spring water from the mountains allows for a clean and efficient treatment of the coffee harvest called the washed process, followed by a natural drying phase on raised bamboo beds to prevent mould.

Café visit is a must for Earthlings wherever we go, so we could reach out to others with the same passion, taste different coffees to add to our sensory repertoire, and learn new things through unexpected encounters. Flo and Lina definitely enjoyed their latest Thailand trip as they slurp down delicious espressos made by friendly baristas. Though there was some language barrier, they managed to strike insightful conversations about different coffee cultures and even joined one of the teams for cupping (coffee tasting). We believe in genuine interactions with different communities we are involved with which will lead to better understanding and greater gains for the specialty coffee industry.