Laos Bolaven Plateau Coffee

A coffee from the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos, grown on volcanic soil at cool altitude. The cup is rounded and sweet, with cane sugar, citrus, cocoa and a soft earthy finish. Brewed in an AeroPress at 93°C.

Origin & Story

The Bolaven Plateau lies in the south of Laos, mostly in Champasak province, between about 1,000 and 1,350 meters up. The soil is volcanic, the air is cooler than in the lowlands, and the rain is plentiful. It is farm country, with coffee, tea, cardamom, bananas, rubber and vegetables, and the people who live on it are mostly Laven and other Mon-Khmer groups.

French colonists brought coffee to Laos in the early 1900s, and they chose the plateau because its climate suited coffee better than the north. By the 1920s coffee was the main crop here, and a research center near the town of Paksong opened in 1930. The first plantings were arabica, mostly Bourbon and Typica.

Then came war. During the Vietnam War, from the late 1960s, the plateau was bombed heavily, because the Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through the mountains beside it, and it is still littered with unexploded ordnance. Coffee growing never fully recovered, and many farmers later switched to robusta, which is hardier and easier to grow. Today about 15,000 to 20,000 tons of coffee are grown here each year, roughly 80 percent of it robusta.

Arabica is still grown, and in 2007 farmers in the area formed a cooperative that now has well over a thousand member households and sells Fairtrade coffee.

The cup here is soft and sweet: cane sugar and citrus, cocoa and a gentle earthy finish. An AeroPress gives it a clean, rounded cup. Steep 14.4 g of medium-fine coffee in 240 ml of water at 93°C for about three minutes, then press gently.

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