The Myanmar Coffee Map: Introduction to Myanmar Coffee Varieties and Cultivation - What Coffee Does Myanmar Have?

Myanmar Coffee Origins

Myanmar began cultivating coffee in 1885, yet for nearly a century afterward there were no exports and no significant commercial presence.

In the mid-to-late 20th century, the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) began promoting coffee cultivation as a way to encourage Myanmar farmers to move away from poppy growing.

Still, as of a few years ago, Myanmar had 100,000 acres of coffee plantations, more than half of them in southern Shan State and near Mandalay.

Whatever the current state of Myanmar's coffee processing, the country's vast natural shade forests and low-pollution environment give it real potential to produce high-quality coffee.

Myanmar's agricultural officials have also planned to send experts around the world in search of suitable varieties, bringing plants and seeds back home.

Myanmar has already managed to source many well-known varieties, including H528, Catuai, SL34, S795 and Blue Mountain, with S795 considered the finest. That range is enough to compete with the traditional varieties grown elsewhere.

The Myanmar Coffee Map Project

The "Myanmar Coffee Map" actually began collecting data at the same time as the "Sri Lanka Coffee Map," in October 2006. Sri Lanka was the one chosen first. Over the following 10 months, family changes and various work and personal matters intervened, and the Sri Lanka article was only finished in March, after which things slipped for almost another five months until this article was finally completed.

The original idea was to express each country's coffee-producing regions and overall picture in map form, with the focus on the map itself. The text, because it must involve verification, is not my strong suit, and I worried about frequent errors, so I intended to keep the notes simple. In the end I still had to gather a great deal of material and turn it into text so that the map could be drawn from the descriptions. So, as with the Sri Lanka piece before it, the text of these "Coffee Maps" has grown longer.

The added text is not all about coffee; it also takes in geography, history and culture. Having spent the time reading the material, it seemed a waste to discard what the "Coffee Maps" did not strictly need and forget it later, so I took the chance to organize and write it down as well.

Myanmar is far from Taiwan and usually feels remote, so it was surprising that, once the material was assembled, one story after another landed heavily. To call these materials "stories" is not quite right, since behind every event lies a great deal of hardship. At root, wars and conflicts driven by human selfishness and the pursuit of power have derailed the dreams of ordinary family life for far too many people.

There is much more that could be written about Myanmar, such as the special regions of the Golden Triangle, but that drifts too far from the theme of this piece. A few reference links make clear that many people in Taiwan still hold those places close.

More than a decade ago I had female colleagues from Myanmar of Yunnan descent, and their distinctive accent still stays with me. I have not seen them in a long time, and I wonder how they are doing now.

Brief History of Myanmar

In the past we often recited: "The capital of Myanmar is Yangon."

On November 7, 2005, however, the Myanmar government suddenly announced that the capital would move to Pyinmana, and stated that the new capital would be named "Nay Pyi Taw." Nay Pyi Taw is understood to mean "Royal Capital." Such a major event as moving a capital could be planned in secret and then carried out quickly.

Mountain barriers and rugged terrain have given Myanmar an extremely complex ethnic makeup. In 1886, Britain occupied the area, incorporated it into India under the British Commonwealth and made it a province of India. In 1937, Myanmar separated from the Indian Empire and became a separate territory of the British Empire. During World War II, Japanese forces occupied Myanmar in 1942, and after Japan's defeat in 1945, Britain again held Myanmar. In 1947, leaders of the majority and of the minority states jointly sought independence from the British Empire, and on January 4, 1948, the Union of Burma was established. Since then the country has passed through a long series of political struggles and military takeovers. In 1989, the authorities changed the country's English name from Union of Burma to Union of Myanmar, and on November 7, 2005, for strategic reasons, the government announced the move of the capital from Yangon to Nay Pyi Taw.

Relying on its natural environment, Myanmar ought to be richly endowed: its water resources and mineral deposits are abundant and should be able to support a comfortable living for its people. During the early period after independence from British rule, Myanmar's economy was in fact quite strong, but years of political struggle and military turmoil have left the country poor and struggling.

Administrative Divisions of Myanmar

Myanmar's administrative divisions are interesting. Under the federal government, the country is divided into 7 divisions and 7 states. Because of the complex terrain and numerous ethnic groups, the largest group, the Bamar, makes up about 65% of the population and lives in the central lowlands, while ethnic minorities established several states in the surrounding areas. In 1947, the central region led the various states in seeking independence from Britain, and after adjustments to the administrative divisions, the 7 divisions and 7 states were formed, together composing the Union of Myanmar.

The 7 divisions were generally carved out of the central region: Sagaing Division, Bago Division, Magway Division, Mandalay Division, Tanintharyi Division, Ayeyarwady Division, and Yangon Division.

The 7 states are: Kachin State, Kayah State, Kayin State, Chin State, Mon State, Rakhine State, and Shan State.

The Golden Triangle

Speaking of Myanmar, one cannot omit the Golden Triangle. The name refers to the border areas of northern Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, and some sources would also include southern Yunnan Province in China and northern Vietnam. The area has poor transport links and continuous mountains, and it became world-famous for poppy cultivation, which was processed into opium and heroin. Within the Golden Triangle, Myanmar's territory covers the largest share. More than a hundred years ago the British began planting poppies here, and since then poppies have been almost the only cash crop for farmers in the mountainous north of Myanmar.

The ethnic groups of the Indochinese Peninsula and the ethnic minorities of southwestern China are extremely close both geographically and by blood, and over the centuries people moved back and forth across these mountains and intermarried with the local communities.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) once promoted drug-crop substitution programs in the Golden Triangle, hoping to guide farmers toward other crops such as grains, fruit, tea, rubber and coffee in place of poppy, with the aim of eliminating drugs. The results have not yet been significant, but coffee is one of the crops the programs have encouraged.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Among the varieties Myanmar has taken up, Blue Mountain is one of the most familiar, which makes FrontStreet's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 a fitting way to taste the original. Certified Blue Mountain coffee can only come from a defined part of Jamaica's Blue Mountains, and the No. 1 grade ranks among the highest in the Jamaican system, held to strict standards for bean size, defect rate and overall quality. FrontStreet's lot comes from the historic Clifton Mount estate, which has grown and processed coffee since around 1750, on land averaging 4300 feet (1310.64 meters). The altitude, the gentle afternoon cloud that shades the slopes, the plentiful sunshine and the mineral-rich soil all favor the slow ripening of the cherries. Roasted to a medium-dark level that brings out the bean's classic balance, the cup unfurls in layers of nut, dark chocolate, creamy caramel and soft sweetness, with acidity, sweetness, bitterness and aroma all in harmony, and no single note dominating.