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Lao DELTA AA

Laos' coffee industry goes back a century, to the French colonial era. The French found that the Bolaven Plateau, with its high altitude and mineral-rich soil, offered excellent conditions for coffee, and they brought in cultivation techniques and planted on a large scale.

Unfortunately the Second World War broke out soon after and the French left Laos, turning the Bolaven Plateau into a battlefield. For the next 20 years, shells and gunpowder from wars both foreign and internal heavily contaminated the soil. On top of that, under the communist rule of the time coffee was treated as a capitalist product, so only a minimal amount of coffee production survived on the plateau.

The Sisombat family had moved to France during the civil war. It was only in recent years, as the Lao government gradually opened up to private enterprise, that he and his father, a former Minister of Commerce, decided to return home in 1992 and build a family business around coffee.

Sinouk Sisombat bought land on the Bolaven Plateau to grow coffee and sent samples from the first harvest to a coffee research institution in Montpellier, in southern France, for quality assessment. The results drew high praise, and from then on Sinouk was set on the premium coffee market.

Arabica Coffee Beans: Challenging to Cultivate

Coffee has since become Laos' most important agricultural export, but the difficult-to-grow Arabica variety accounts for only one-third of total production.

Laos' annual coffee export value runs to around tens of millions of dollars, still far from Vietnam's billions. That is why farmers on the Bolaven Plateau aim for quality over quantity.

One of the Twelve Best Coffees in the World

Lao coffee's history begins in the early 20th century, when French colonial rule introduced the crop and sent many experts to help local farmers improve their cultivation and roasting. Lao Arabica is counted among the twelve best coffees in the world. The DELTA Estate is run with love by its owner, Alan, who donates its revenue to support primary schools, while OkeLuo buys all of the estate's raw coffee, returning 30% of revenue to the community for public welfare.

He insists on natural organic composting to feed his coffee trees, and combined with the distinctive volcanic rock geology of the Bolaven Plateau, the cherries come out large and plump: coffee grown by people with absolute passion for the land.

Flavor Description

The cup is delicate and rich, with very prominent cane-sugar sweetness, no acidity, complex aromas, a moderate body and a floral-sweet aftertaste.

36 Coffee Aromas

Black currant, cream, malt, maple, almond and earthy notes.

Laos is a special country: steeped in French romance yet weathered by war. Perhaps it is that character, born of hardship, that lets its flavour rise again and fill the air with fragrance once more.

I. History of Lao Coffee

Laos was formerly under French colonial rule, and its coffee industry reaches back 100 years to that era, when the French recognized the mineral-rich soil and altitude of the Bolaven Plateau as ideal for coffee trees.

During the Second World War the plateau was caught up in the fighting and the French left one after another. Internal and external conflict followed, leaving the soil contaminated by heavy metals from gunpowder and shell casings. The communist government of the day also regarded coffee as a capitalist product, and Lao cultivation and production declined sharply as a result.

In recent years, as the government has opened up private industry, Lao coffee has re-emerged. Sinouk Sisombat, president of the Lao Coffee Association, sent samples from the first Bolaven Plateau harvest to a research institution in Montpellier for assessment, and the recognition that followed helped Lao coffee establish itself in the market.

II. Lao Coffee Culture and Charm

Lao coffee beans have become one of the country's important agricultural exports, with the more demanding Arabica making up one-third of production.

Production is dominated by small family farmers, and techniques still have room to improve. There are few large, corporately managed estates, and the sector's potential depends on further cooperation between government and private operators. Even so, the coffee's flavour is mild and smooth with appropriate acidity, making it an excellent choice.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Lao Arabica's calling card is sweetness without sharp acidity, and if that is what you enjoy, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate makes a fine companion. Grown in Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, it is a distinctive Yellow Bourbon with a clean, gently sweet profile and creamy peanut, chocolate, toasted bread and sugarcane aromas, full-bodied and smooth enough for pour-over, moka pot or espresso machine.

For the same easy drinking quality with a touch more classic structure, FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 is a Typica and famously even, with hazelnut, cream, chocolate, caramel and honey and a light fruit tone, soft on entry and clean on the finish. Its balance is the reason it suits almost any brewer and any drinker.

If you would like to edge toward a fruitier cup while keeping the sweetness, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Sidra, roasted light-medium, shows floral, tropical fruit, grape, dried fruit and passion fruit flavours with a juice-like mouthfeel, a gentle step up in complexity from a mild, low-acid coffee.