Doi Tung Development Corporation
Chiang Rai, Thailand

Now, that's a cup of coffee....

The problem with Thailand is when you wake up and want to smell the coffee, the only coffee in the room is a paper tube of pitiful, powdered Nescafe. All five of the Bangkok five-stars where I stayed served it. I had to travel all the way to Anantara’s Golden Triangle to get real coffee in my room. Their coffee? Doi Tung—it’s grown and roasted right here in northern Thailand.

On my first Mekong dawn, steaming mug in hand, Doi Tung’s rich aroma goes with me out on my balcony. The dawn is misty and bird-musical, the coffee is mellow and smooth bringing to mind lusciously ripe fruit—mangosteen or mango perhaps. With its bright bite, it’s no wimp--no harsh aftertaste either. I’m smitten and want to bring some home.

The label says Doi Tong, like all the world’s great coffees, is 100% Arabica. It is shade-grown for the slow ripening that develops a coffee’s character and handpicked so only red-ripe coffee beans will get in the mix. Machines suck up green beans along with the ripe—the equivalent of adding bitter tomatoes to tomato sauce.

There’s even an official United Nations seal on the label. From the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, it certifies that villagers who once were dependant on growing opium poppies grew this coffee instead. Seems there’s more here than meets the mouth.

Much more. Doi Tung, I learn, is the brand name of the Doi Tung Development Project, an undertaking of the Princess Mother’s Foundation. The late mother of the current King, folks in these parts know her as Mae Fah Luang—Royal Mother from the sky—because before her Mae Fah Luang Foundation built the roads, she arrived by helicopter. She was a crusader for Northern Thailand—for its impoverished hill tribe peoples, for its forests denuded by clear cutting and slash-and-burn poppy-growing techniques, and for the eradication of opium.

My morning java is just a cup of a bigger picture: sustainable crops substituted for opium poppies, square miles of reforestation, and crafts developed to provide jobs—never mind treasures to carry home. Headquartered an hour’s ride from Anantara, they not only have just-roasted Doi Tung coffee, but hikes in the maturing tropical forest, a Royal Villa, and the Princess Mother’s Gardens—sixty acres of streams and fountains wandering through begonias, snaps, delphiniums, and hollyhocks. There’s nothing like a good cup of coffee to help plan the day.

I was off, through rural villages and past small farms, with the car and driver Anantara arranged. My driver is from a nearby village. The lives of the locals come into focus as he tells of his farm and family. Twice a year, they plant rice. The first crop includes the region’s well-known sticky rice and is for the family; the second crop is for market. Among the rice paddies, squarish ponds have a standpipe sticking out of them, blowing water into the air. These are fish farms, first carp then catfish, aerated by the standpipes. My driver’s wife also works, so his youngest kids stay with his mother and their aunties on the farm. His oldest daughter stays with them in the village and walks to school. Everyone has a nickname. My driver’s is know as "little insect;’ his son is "littler insect." Their homes vary from traditional ones on stilts to newly painted cement-block houses with carousel-colored tin roofs. In their yards, golden gobs of cassia trees flower in the yards along with ripening longons, lychees and bananas.

When the quite-good road begins to wind upwards and coffee and macadamia nut trees begin to mix in with the tropical forest, we’ve entered the Doi Tung Project. Swarms of helmeted bicyclists—aged 9 to 90—slow us down. Six thousand strong, these mountain bikers have just finished the annual bike race, in honor of the Princess Mother, down Doi Tung Mountain. Now everyone is headed back up the mountain to the awards ceremony and the café.

Over iced Doi Tung coffee and lunch I met up with Narong Apichai, a Doi Tung coffee manager, and my education begins. Launched in 1989, the project covers sixty square miles, 85% of which has been reforested. The rest is in sustainable agriculture for the 27 villages of hill tribe peoples who live in the area. Four hundred and fifty families now grow coffee. Their goal is to control the process from the bean to the brew and they already have five coffee houses in Bangkok.

Other villagers grow macadamia nuts, market vegetables, and orchids. Still others weave lush textiles, throw elegant ceramics, and create decorative paper from the bark of Sa (mulberry) trees. The opium is gone. Best of all, the families’ annual incomes are up eight times what they were in their poppy-growing days.

On the peaceful drive back to Anantara, I plan who will get the hand-woven silk scarf, the two cotton and reed rugs and the sheets of Sa paper I bought. I realize I cannot part with the apple-green ceramic mug. Inspired, however, by both Doi Tung’s natural beauty and its incredibly successful display of human kindness, I know I will share their coffee.

Doi Tung—great flavor, gobs of acreage reforested, and hundreds of families earning more with beans than poppies—now that’s a good cup of coffee.

Kate Crawford    June, 2006

AND, You can help by asking for it by name, Doi (as in toy) Tung (as in dung) coffee, in every hotel that puts powdered coffee in their rooms.