Barista Magazine

APR-MAY 2016

Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005

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This is a secondary aspect of this success story, and it differs so much from what we see in Latin America in coffee production. It is far easier to disconnect from farming coffee in other countries due to the lack of a stable market that pays accordingly. Thailand has an advantage and an opportunity to put itself on the world stage as a producing country with a quality proposition. There certainly are more stories such as Ata's that will play themselves out over the next decade in the regions of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, as well as other coffee-growing provinces such as Lampang and Nan, whose coffees also show great potential. CELEBRATING THE NOW The other facet to my travel to Thailand was the growth and appreciation of coffee within its borders, another story that differs from so many other producing countries, with the exception of the fabled story of coffee in Ethiopia. The breadth of cafés and roasteries entering the world stage in Southeast Asia continues to defy all odds. Bangkok and Chiang Mai are at the epicenter of this trend. Even 25 years ago, it was not too hard to find a decent cup of siphon around the touristy areas of Khao San Road where I stayed in 1990. Today, there are easily 30-plus shops importing and roasting their own country's coffee, among them Roots Coffee Roasters, Happy Espresso, Casa Lapin, Brave, Ceresia, Gallery Drip, Ponganes, and FABB. Even my three days in Chiang Rai, a small city in comparison to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, I was very impressed with both the Saturday Café and The Roast coffee shop in their execution and commitment to serving excellent coffees. The hardest stumbling block to becoming an internationally recognized coffee-consuming country on par with South Korea, Scandinavia, Australia, and the United States is the tariff tax on imports from other countries. It is very cost-prohibitive to bring in an exemplary coffee from Ethiopia or Colombia due to the tariff. This is creating a demand for more coffee to be grown within Thailand's borders, but also hurting it by not allowing the free importation of coffees from other regions of the world. Though Thailand has been growing coffee for more than 100 years (mostly Robusta), it sits at a crossroads about whether it can grow enough for the growing demand inside and outside of its country. At le , posing under a 50-year-old Bourbon tree planted on Ata's farm at Doi Pangkhon, the author (far le ), Ata (center), and R. Miguel Meza share a laugh. At right, Dek Wung Boorapa of Saturday Café in Chiang Rai. #caffeinecrawl Facebook /caffeinecrawl Twitter @caffeinecrawl Instagram @caffeinecrawl COFFEE LUVAS INDUSTRY PROS + = A special thanks to our Kansas City Platinum Sponsor: 50 barista magazine

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