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T H A I L A N D Air hissed through the AeroPress at 35,000 feet and filled my cup with Bare's Bondi Beach coffee. My business partner, Brandon Warman, and I were aboard a plane headed for Hong Kong to meet our manu- facturing team and represent our company, Handground, at the Hong Kong Housewares trade show. Our plan was to tackle manufacturing head-on, while getting the chance to explore coffee in Thailand be- tween manufacturing milestones. SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.—SEATTLE— HONG KONG Four months earlier, Brandon and I embarked on a mission to build a new coffee grinder called Handground. We rented out our bedrooms on Airbnb to cover rent while working day and night from our garage in Santa Barbara, Calif., to bring the idea to life. Throughout the pro- cess, we posted our progress online to solicit feedback, and eventually built a following that would come to be known as Team Handground. This team, now composed of thousands of coffee enthusiasts around the world, has helped us make vital decisions that have shaped the design of Handground. We succeeded in creating demand for the product—now we had to deliver on that promise. Our Kickstarter campaign left us with more than 4,000 orders to ship by September 2015. April rolled around fast and, with it, the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Conference and Expo in Seattle. We were able to meet many of our backers there and receive advice from those who had gone down this path before. They all said the same thing, and it has stayed on our minds ever since: "Manufacturing in Asia is hard." HONG KONG—CHIANG MAI, THAILAND The following week, we were standing on the trade-show floor in Hong Kong with our manufacturing partner, Platform88. The latest Opposite page, at top: Tucked away on a small side street in Chiang Mai, Akha Ama can be a difficult but rewarding coffee shop to find. Brandon and Daniel drove by Akha Ama three times before finally spoing the small circle sign, which shows the logo of a mother in the Akha village of Maejantai that convinced them to grow and process their own coffee. Below: With the street closed for the evening, a future child-star performs on Silom Rd in the heart of downtown Bangkok. Brandon and Daniel stayed just around the corner from where this photo was taken. This page: The Satan Lae at Ristr8to in Chiang Mai served in a signature 8-ounce mug, as used at the World Lae Art Championship. 45 www.baristamagazine.com