DOI PANGKON

Doi Pangkhon, Chiang Rai

Variety: Catuai, Typica, Chiang Mai, SJ133
Process:  Kenya-style Washed
Altitude: 1250-1450 masl.
Region: Doi Pangkhon, Chiang Rai Thailand

 Craft 42 is pleased to limited release from Forward Lottery 9 a delicious everyday coffee.

 ABOUT THE FARMER

 Doi Pangkhon is made up of about 300 small household coffee producers. The continuous efforts to improve all aspects of their operations include adding a wet mill and a cupping lab. The processing, part natural, part washed with an additional soak dubbed ‘Kenya-Style’ works perfectly with the local coffee varietals enhancing the quality in the cup. 

ABOUT THE FARM

Doi Pangkhon, in Chiang Rai, has 300 households, each typically producing about 1-2 tons of parchment. In the past years, we worked with each house individually on their wet processing and bought their parchment before hulling and grading at our mill. In 2017-2018 season, we invested in a wet mill, operated by a few of our partner producers, all belonging to the five Merlaeku brothers who are of Akha Hilltribe minority, so we had more control of the process since the cherries and we also bought cherries from outside the family as well. In the 2018-2019 season, we improved the mill by adding the roof, buying new pulpers and improving workflows. In the 2019-2020 harvest, we bought an electricity generator, built a cupping lab for the farmers, and laid new concentrate flooring for the mill. In the 2020-2021 harvest, we leased a new space in the lowland so we can dry coffee more efficiently. In the 2021-2022 harvest, we increased our production by 20%, meaning we expanded our drying space, while harvest rain reduced the crop overall for the country.

In past years, our Kenya-styled Washed involved a double staged fermentation, which included dry fermentation, followed by wet fermentation and ended with soaking. This harvest season, we experimented with extending the dry fermentation stage even longer, reducing the wet fermentation and soaking stages to a minimum. We dried bamboo raised beds for at least 14 days and finished off the drying in the lowland. We believe this experiment has produced a more complex coffee and maybe our standards from now on. A "Kenya-style washed" process is a processing method that is widely used in Kenya and is known for producing clean, crisp and consistent coffee. We believe this is the best season for Doi Pangkhon in the past 8 years that we've been processing there.

The elevation at Doi Pangkhon is from 1250-1450 meters above sea level. Note that we are at 19 degrees north of the equator, which means that this elevation is really high (e.g. Colombia Narino is 1 degree north, Costa Rica Terrazu is 9 degree north so coffee can grow beyond 1600m there). The varietals here are a mixture of Catuai, Typica, Chiang Mai & SJ133. SJ133 is genetically identical to Costa Rica 95, while Chiang Mai is a local hybrid that is a cross between SL28 x Caturra x Hibrido de Timor.

In terms of green preparation, the coffee went through a destoner, huller, size grader, density table and ended with handsorting. The green passed through the density table multiple times. We shipped coffee in a triple layered bag, which includes a cotton bag in the outer layer, High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) in the middle layer and hermetic bag in the innermost layer.