Saffron, in many ways, is the color of Luang Prabang—the World Heritage City and home of Saffron Coffee. The many monks who walk the streets each morning to collect their daily rice are adorned in saffron robes. Gilded temples are dressed with saffron colored fabric. The night market is filled with local artists’ paintings, who use saffron to depict the golden sunsets and romantic scenery around Luang Prabang. Saffron is the color of enchantment, serenity and peace.
Unfortunately, peace is something that has rarely been realized in the turbulent history of Laos. Bombed more than any place in history, Laos has struggled to overcome war, imperialism, political corruption, lack of infrastructure and widespread poverty. Only recently has Laos moved out of the status of the poorest country in the world, but still remains extraordinarily underdeveloped. The vast majority of the Lao people are subsistence farmers who eat what they produce. They lack a consistent cash-crop and thereby the hope to improve their situation.
For decades before and after the “Secret War,” Laos has been one of the leading producers of opium in the world. Opium cultivation became the only source of viable income for the impoverished and displaced mountain hilltribes in Laos. But in recent times the government of Laos has succeeded in stamping out almost all opium production. Without a replacement crop, however, former opium growers have had to move down from the mountains to find a new source of income. They have been mostly unsuccessful.
With many concerned agencies and organizations considering the plight of the people, Laos has received an enormous amount of aid and development initiatives. While most development projects excel in providing funds, introducing appropriate technology and training national workers, they often fail in helping to provide a viable and long-term market for the new agricultural products introduced. Such is the case with Arabica coffee in the province of Luang Prabang.
Coffee was first introduced to Laos by the French when they ruled over most of Indochina. Because of resistance to disease, the low-quality Robusta variety flourished in southern Laos on the Bolivens Plateau. Now, over 90% of all Lao coffee comes from southern Laos and the majority of it is Robusta. The European Union began a coffee initiative in Luang Prabang in the 1990s. The project succeeded in helping the farmers to produce, but no market was found for them to sell their coffee. It was too far away from the large companies in the south to attract their interest. In less than 10 years most of the farmers cut down their trees and planted other subsistence crops.
Saffron Coffee began with the vision of David Dale, the project’s founder. David had worked in Laos for five years with an agricultural promotion project in a northern province. He realized that the major obstacle for agricultural development was not promotion and education, but access to markets. One day, as David was considering how to best help the people in Laos, he scribbled on a piece of paper some ideas on what might be the ideal crop for the mountain-dwelling peoples of northern Laos. He wanted to promote a crop that could replace opium in the highland fields, was good for the environment, and brought a good income to the farmers. This led David to Arabica coffee.
David researched the possibility of promoting coffee in northern Laos and beginning in the World Heritage city of Luang Prabang. It was at this time that he discovered a Hmong village that already had some shade-grown, highland Arabica coffee. This village was a part of the former EU project. David discovered that most of these Hmong farmers ceased to harvest their coffee cherries because no one was interested in buying. Many of them completely destroyed their coffee plantations.
As David made plans to begin coffee promotion in Luang Prabang, he built relationships with the Hmong in the coffee village. All of them were very excited to learn that they would soon receive help to market their coffee and encouragement to increase their plantations. The following year all of the Hmong families began to harvest their coffee. As they received income from the fruit of their coffee-growing efforts, excitement grew about future possibilities. The entire village then decided to redevelop their upland fields which were formerly planted in opium, and to plant more than 10 times as much coffee as they already had!
David then employed two local Hmong men who had recently graduated from college to assist in promoting coffee in Luang Prabang and organizing coffee growers together in a coffee cooperative to produce Saffron Coffee. The goal for the first year was to plant 50 hectares of Arabica coffee, targeting ten villages. But as the two young Hmong men traveled from village to village they discovered a very high interest in planting coffee. They returned not with the goal of 50 hectares to be planted with coffee, but 120 hectares of land dedicated to planting coffee! This is over 300,000 coffee trees in the first year of coffee promotion.
David and these two Hmong men then dedicated themselves to seeking the highest quality Arabica coffee varieties appropriate for planting in northern Laos; getting training in the best wet-processing methods, and developing a coffee nursery and processing plant to serve the hundreds of coffee growers who are joining together to produce Saffron Coffee.
It is our goal that through Saffron Coffee true ‘peace’ will be restored to the mountain peoples of Laos.
Saffron Coffee is driven by three passions—the passion to help improve the lives of Lao mountain farmers by promoting Arabica coffee cultivation; the passion to conserve the environment by reforestation associated with shade-grown coffee production, by eliminating slash-and-burn agriculture and by employing only organic cultivation practices; and the passion to produce the highest-quality Arabica coffee for you to enjoy as you sip your cup of Saffron Coffee.
