CoffeeWORKS has joined hands with Chiang Mai based NGO, the Integrated Tribal Development Foundation (ITDF) to produce a coffee that gives you the chance to experience a Thai Arabica coffee lineage dating back to 1954! In the mid-1950s the Thai Department of Agriculture began introducing Brazil coffee varietal lines when field trials were conducted at a number of crop research and development stations in northern Thailand’s Doi (Mt.) Muser. In the 1960s & 70s through the cooperative efforts of His Majesty King Bumibhol The Great of Thailand’s Royal Highland Development Project, the Thai-UN Crop Replacement and Community Development Project, and an early incarnation of ITDP, Arabica coffee cultivation was expanded as a way to displace opium production throughout the northern Thai provinces.
By the 1980s the Thai-UN Project was able to turn over the high mountain agricultural research, development, and training stations to Chiang Mai University that continue those same efforts to the present day. Chiang Rai Arabica coffee development has also grown extensively through the Princess Mother’s Doi Tung Royal Development Foundation. In our direct trade efforts with ITDF starting in 2005, CoffeeWORKS has funded yearly harvest processing experiments to assist ITDF farming communities to develop natural pulped Thai Arabica coffees. Previously perfected throughout South American coffee producers, which are sometimes referred to as ‘honey processed’ green coffees, ITDF Lisu families in northern Thailand (Lisu people being originally hunter based communities), were the first to join our efforts to produce high quality natural pulped coffees, and thus the basis for “Hunter’s Brew!”
Throughout CoffeeWORKS’ direct trade efforts, and within ITDF’s larger project work over many decades have resulted in helping subsistence level communities of the northern hill tribe villages come together so they have one voice on coffee prices, which helps these often remote villages in gaining sustainable coffee prices that have lead to measurably improved livelihoods. CoffeeWORKS’ direct trade work with ITDF’s larger coffee support activities reinforce sustainability through soil and water conservation practices, shade and organic based growing methods, and meeting international standards on coffee processing, grading, and in-the-cup quality.
Tasting notes: Walnut / Graham cracker / Golden raisin