Thailand – Nine One Coffee Farm

You too can go to the farm and even live in the forest for a while, where you can enjoy the nature in complete peace. It offers accommodation in beautiful bungalows. You just have to arrive in the right season - November to early January is ideal. Then the harvest starts and the farm is busy, so there's no one to keep you busy.

So what will you see on the farm? After arriving at the café, which the owner of the farm Mr. One has built right on the main route between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, you will taste great coffee and then head into the mountains in an old off-road car. After a while the asphalt is replaced by concrete panels and then they too disappear.

A steep climb takes you into the mountain jungle - the arabica coffee trees can be grown in the shade of the trees. That's one of the reasons Mr One decided to start growing coffee. "I could have planted apple trees, lychees or pineapples. But then I'd have to cut down the forest. I want big trees to keep growing here, nature needs them. And with coffee, it's possible," he told me on the way. After a while he stopped and added: "Listen. Can you hear the birds? Do you see the butterflies flying around? If I decided to cut down the forest and use artificial fertilizers and chemical sprays here, it would be quiet. Dead silence."

There are about 100,000 coffee trees on the entire farm, but each one produces only a small amount of red coffee cherries, which must then be hand-picked. Can you imagine how much work that is? Moreover, unlike conventional commercial farms, Nine One uses no chemical fertilizers or sprays.

What we know as coffee is actually the roasted seeds of the coffee tree - you'll find two in every cherry. But on the farm you can also taste the cherry itself, because the flesh and skin are edible.

After a short walk through the jungle, you'll drive to the water mill where the coffee is processed. You need to remove the unripe cherries, separate the skins from the coffee beans, sort the beans by size and then dry them in the sun. Part of the harvest is dried directly with the husks and the beans are then separated and cleaned after drying.

They will also be happy to explain the difference between the different varieties of coffee, its processing and, most importantly, what all affects the resulting taste. If you're at all interested in coffee - and I believe almost all of you are - go. Not only will you broaden your horizons, but you'll also spend a day in the beautiful countryside and you can combine the trip with a trip to the surrounding mountains.

GPS: 19°02'39.8"N 99°20'30.4"E

Text, photos, and video: Matouš Vinš

Music: David Szesztay