About This Coffee
This lot is comprised of coffees from different producers located in the villages Na Ban Gyi and Taung Khaung Pwar. The dry mill where the coffee is processed before being exported by the Mandalay Coffee Group is called Shwe Ywa Ngan.
Cultivation
All coffee grown by the group was cultivated without the use of chemical fertilizers.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
This coffee was processed using the Honey method. Cherry is delivered to the group's new processing facility, pulped on drum pulpers and then laid in thin layers to dry on raised beds. The group also produces very high quality Fully washed and Natural lots.
Coffee in Myanmar
Though coffee has been grown in Myanmar since 1885, the isolationist policies of the post-independence period had limited coffee growing and processing infrastructure. More recent initiatives have focused on expanding coffee infrastructure and opening the country’s economy through coffee exports.
Coffee started to become a larger focus in Myanmar in the 1980s, when the government partnered with the UN to start a project aimed at replacing illegal poppy production (for opium) with coffee trees.
The focus on coffee grew in 2015 when a partnership project with Winrock International and the Coffee Quality Institute sought to address one of the biggest challenges Myanmar’s coffee industry faces. By helping farmers begin more intensive sorting and grading, the project helped farmers achieve higher quality coffee and to sell on the specialty market.
We have witnessed the incredible potential of coffee in Myanmar. In just a few years’ time, coffee scores jumped from the low-70s to the mid-80s. With such quick improvements, imagine what another 5 to 10 years of educational outreach and improving supply chains with could do.