About This Coffee
This lot is comprised of coffee coming from various smallholders in the Ywangan region, Southern Shan State. The Mandalay Coffee Group (MCG) organizes the pre-financing, collection, payments to the farmers, and processing for this lot. Many of these village smallholders are also involved in their own small-scale production of dry natural coffees, an initiative that MCG supported by financing start-up and seasonal costs since 2015. U Thint Lwin is the purchasing agent for this region and works closely together with the farmers to get the quality to the level of expectation.
Parts of this region are within the Danu self-administered zone, and many ethnic Danu people live in the area. One of the country’s most popular tourist attractions, Inle Lake, is about 120km southeast of Ywangan.
Cultivation
Apart from MCG’s support, the smallholders who farm between 1-3 hectares of land, also receive technical assistance of Winrock International. Winrock is a nonprofit organization that works with people around the world to empower the disadvantaged and improve economic opportunity.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
During the season, U Thint Lwin lives in Ywangan to oversee the harvest and a smooth collection service so the coffee cherries arrive fresh and in good condition at MCG’s facility in Pyin Oo Lwin.
After meticulous picking, the cherries are pulped the same day in MCG’s Pinhalense vertical eco-pulper. The coffee ferments in a tiled tank overnight. After thorough washing, the parchment is dried on concrete patios in the sun, with workers turning it hourly and covering it before dusk to prevent dew from reintroducing moisture at night. Each daily lot is kept separate before being cupped by at least 1 Q grader to ensure consistent quality and to assess the profile.
The coffee is then hulled and sorted in the Pinhalense dry mill and Satake optical sorter.
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.