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Northern Thailand's "Golden Triangle" Mountain Region

As most people know, the mountains of northern Thailand were once one of the world's opium-producing areas. High-quality coffee, like opium poppy, happens to demand high altitude and low latitude — so the Thai government spent years helping local communities switch to growing coffee beans, tea, flowers, and organic vegetables instead. Today, let's get to know the coffee beans of northern Thailand.

It is common knowledge that growing poppies in Myanmar is illegal; yet in this remote, desperately poor region, local farmers shrug: "We don't have any other practical options." John M. Whelan, former head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration's Myanmar office, put it bluntly: "The government needs them because they can benefit from them."

Ten years ago, Bang Lian village on Myanmar's eastern border — part of the notorious Golden Triangle — received an intensive crackdown from the Myanmar government, and the illegal sea of poppies was once expected to be eradicated for good. Yet nearly a decade later, United Nations survey reports found that since 2006 the poppy-growing area in Myanmar's Golden Triangle has not shrunk but actually grown nearly threefold, making the region the world's second-largest heroin producer after Afghanistan.

The history of poppy cultivation in Myanmar is so old that no one really knows where to begin counting. Ancestors of today's farmers grew opium to make medical remedies for fevers, stomach ailments, even snake venom; later it became the raw material for smoked opium. More to the point, the trade is extremely lucrative.

The Legend of Arabica Coffee Beans

Since the early 1970s, the Thai government has run a series of agricultural programs in the northern mountains, teaching mountain residents farming techniques and introducing cash crops — all aimed at raising living standards and ending opium cultivation. More than 40 years on, residents no longer plant opium; in its place come fruits, vegetables, and other agricultural products.

The northern mountains produce high-quality Arabica coffee. Arabica was one of the cash crops promoted under the program, and in recent years its quality has won over consumers in Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, Japan, and beyond. The region has reinvented itself as the "Golden Triangle" tourist destination: no longer home to opium, it now breathes the rich, mellow aroma of coffee as precious as gemstones.

The Arabica beans come from Thailand's finest mountain growing areas, at 19.5 degrees north latitude and around 1,300 meters of altitude. They are hand-picked, wet-processed, and graded Grade A — and they are not polished to remove the silver skin, avoiding the aroma loss caused by the heat that polishing generates.

In the 1980s, Taiwan's Christian churches sent many missionaries to work in these northern mountains, living long-term among the indigenous communities, improving living conditions, and promoting agriculture to strengthen the local economy. Arabica coffee is one of the mission farms' crops.

Xiangmiao School in Laizhang Village, Misui County, Chiang Rai Province, is a Chinese-language school sitting at 1,480 meters. What makes it remarkable is its principal, Li Xingtang: he is neither a descendant of the Kuomintang remnants nor Chinese — he is a native Myanmar Akha. Having studied Chinese himself and benefited greatly from it, and convinced that Chinese will be an essential skill in the future, he resolved to build the school.

With Laizhang Village perched on steep terrain, farming is hard, and most residents grow coffee to survive. But transport is difficult and prices are squeezed by middlemen, so families struggle to afford the 1,060 Thai baht per semester school fees. Li Xingtang therefore sells coffee to boost the school's income and subsidize tuition for impoverished students.

Ji Zongyan, an alternative-service volunteer from Taiwan serving at Xiangmiao School, said the children here break your heart. In winter, temperatures fall to barely ten-odd degrees Celsius after sunset, and they wear only slippers. And these are just the children who can attend; those who cannot pay the fees stay home minding younger siblings or helping with farm work.

"We Don't Want Our Children Breaking the Law — But We're More Afraid of Starving"

"Our village had no electricity for decades; night fell pitch black. The only path out was a rugged, rutted dirt road few were willing to travel, so we rarely left these mountains. Apart from trading poppy sap, there was hardly any human movement here at all. Only last year did some Americans come and help us dig a proper mountain road, which made life easier."

The United Nations once sent people to persuade the village to devote some of its fields to coffee. The man leading the project, they said, had spent nearly 30 years in Peru building a successful crop-substitution program for farmers who grew coca. Many villagers attended the classes. The Americans taught them the methods, the experience, and the benefits of growing coffee. The leader, a man named Will, promised: "I guarantee to make your coffee famous, and I'll use my connections to help you sell it." Everyone was moved by what they heard.

So villagers were willing to try coffee, even though it takes three years to bear — but honestly, many were not ready to give up opium. Crop-substitution schemes, they had learned, fail here again and again. There had already been calls to plant buckwheat and sugarcane, but neither crop could survive the broken roads: costs could never be recovered, let alone profits.

One young mother put it plainly: "I want to stop growing opium as soon as possible... but if we grow only coffee, we'll starve." Her child was still learning to walk; her husband was cutting opium sap on the mountain across the valley. Like everyone else, she wants a legal, safer life for the next generation — but everyone is more afraid of starving.

Ji Zongyan arrived at Xiangmiao from Taiwan in October. When he first came there wasn't even a bed — he slept on the ground, often waking cold in the night; later he got a wooden one. The classroom has only two lights, and after the students finish their Thai school day they come to Xiangmiao at 4 PM. The sun is usually still up, so he has them do their homework by the remaining daylight to protect their eyesight.

Out of deep affection for the villagers of these northern mountains — and unwilling to keep this remarkable coffee aroma to himself — he hopes to bring it to a wider market, so that coffee lovers can discover the wonders of Asian coffee ahead of the crowd. Such is the charm of Thai beans: a genuine coffee legend.

The World's Most Expensive: Northern Thailand's "Elephant Dung Coffee"

The Golden Triangle Anantara resort serves its unique elephant dung coffee daily at the Elephant Bar under the name "Black Ivory." Put simply: coffee cherries are eaten by elephants, pass through their digestion, and are collected from the dung; the undigested beans are then picked out and made into coffee. This brew costs far more than civet coffee, leans gently sour, has almost no bitterness, and is unbelievably smooth — drunk without milk or sugar, that is the authentic way.

The coffee's formal name is Black Ivory Coffee, made from beans digested and excreted by Thai elephants. The beans come from the finest Thai Arabica grown at 1,500 meters, and the elephants live at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF) in northern Thailand. The founder is Canadian Blake Dinkin.

Enzymes in the elephant's digestive system break down the beans' proteins during digestion, stripping out nearly all the bitterness of ordinary coffee. The coffee is produced and wholesaled by Black Ivory Coffee Company, which reported a supply of just 50 kilograms in 2012, with the 2013 supply expected to rise. Because it is so scarce, it is sold only in a handful of five-star hotels worldwide, at a retail price of $1,800 per kilogram — or $55 a cup — placing it among the most expensive coffees on earth.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Thai mountain coffee is hard to source fresh, but you can capture the same high-grown Arabica comfort closer to home. For the office, FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend is the first pick: designed expressly for espresso machines and moka pots, it pulls thick, silky crema even from basic home equipment — the foundation of every latte, cappuccino, and Dirty. Its traditional Mandheling-and-Brazil recipe is mellow and warmly full-bodied, easygoing enough for beginners and veterans alike, at the desk or behind a bar.

If you watch the budget as carefully as the flavor, the Black Cocoa Blend is the value play: 100% Arabica, generously creamy, full-bodied, and priced for everyday drinking — quality and cost-effectiveness in the same bag, whether you are stocking a pantry or opening a shop.