Pictured: Heysaw and Way showing ripe cherries grown in the Doi Inthanon village
Coffees Grown: Black Honey
Meet Doi Inthanon, a mountainous village located in the Chom Thong region of Chiang Mai, Thailand. This small community of only 20 Karen tribe members has been growing coffee for over a decade, but until recently, lacked the necessary infrastructure to process and export their beans.
Fortunately, our co-op partner discovered Doi Inthanon in 2018 and saw an opportunity to help the village develop the infrastructure they needed to bring their coffee to market. Today, we're proud to source both honey and natural process coffees from this unique and remote village.
Doi Inthanon is located at an elevation of 1600 meters, providing the perfect conditions for growing coffee. The villagers primarily grow Catimor, both red and yellow varieties, and their beans consistently score an impressive 85 on the cupping scale.
Although Doi Inthanon is just one of many villages in the area, it stands out for its remote and robust landscape. Because Doi Inthanon is such a small community, they lack the processing equipment necessary to produce coffee at scale. To overcome this challenge, we combine the production from multiple villages to produce enough for export. Even with this limitation, some of the villagers still use a mortar and pestle to manually pulp the cherries!
By sourcing our coffee from Doi Inthanon, we're able to provide our customers with an incredibly unique and high-quality product while also supporting a small and remote community. We're proud to be a part of their story and to help them develop their coffee-growing operations for years to come. If you'd like to enjoy coffee from Doi Inthanon and support this wonderful community check out our Black Honey.