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About Coffee Culture Thailand, Susan's Thai Coffee Journey
Our Journey to the Pang Khon Arabica Coffee Chiang Rai Farm
Jun
Founder’s Diary — Through Pine Forests and Mountain Storms
Our Journey to the Pang Khon Coffee Farms, Chiang Rai
By Susan, Founder of Coffee Culture Thailand — May 2026
This was the final farm visit. We had just left the Lahu hill tribe community of Doi Mod and were heading to the last stop on the journey, Pang Khon arabica coffee, Chiang Rai. A two-and-a-half-hour drive away, up in the mountains, along roads that got narrower and more interesting. A night at one of Thailand’s most legendary coffee origins. A star-filled sky with no light pollution for fifty kilometres. A chance encounter with a farmer who had broken away from the corporate coffee machine and gone his own way. A pine forest that felt somewhat like Scandinavia. And a flooded road crossing in a sedan that we will be talking about for years. This is the story of how we got there. And what was waiting at the end.
From Doi Mod to Doi Chang, A Night at the Origin of Thai Coffee
From Doi Mod, the drive to Pang Khon would have taken four hours. The Manop and Namu, the Lahu hill tribe family, had been extraordinarily generous all day and as we were saying goodbye, they did something that stopped us in our tracks. They offered to let us stay overnight in their home. It was one of those invitations you feel in your chest. Simple, warm and completely genuine. But, we had to say no. We needed to get closer to Pang Khon for the early morning drive ahead. But we made a promise to come back. And we meant it. Instead, we drove to Doi Chang. The mountain village that many consider the birthplace of Thailand’s modern coffee industry. The right place to rest before the final leg.
A Night at Doi Chang, Chiang Rai
The drive up is something else entirely. Wide highways for most of it, then the last thirty minutes change everything. The road climbs hard, hugging ridgelines with tea farms falling away into the valleys on either side. We stopped more times than we can count just to stand and look.
When we arrived, the village was almost entirely closed. Off-season Doi Chang goes quiet, as most business owners return to Bangkok between seasons. But a small hotel on the ridge with a 180-degree valley view and a sky so full of stars we stayed up later than we should have made it something we wouldn’t trade.
And then there was Lung Tee, a farmer we stumbled across at a small roadside minimart who had been farming coffee here since the early Royal Project days. A local coffee farmer who walked away from corporate contracts, and never looked back. What was supposed to be a ten-minute stop turned into an hour. That conversation deserves its own telling. So make sure to read the full story of Lung Tee, the Doi Chaang Coffee farmer here.
The Most Unexpected Road in Chiang Rai
The road from Doi Chang climbs higher before it descends. We passed the Doi Chaang estate on the left. Quiet, off-season, visible from the road. Then the landscape grew wilder and more remote.
We found one cafe open. A small wooden structure on the side of the mountain with spectacular valley views, run by a couple who had clearly built their life around slow coffee and slower living. No espresso machine. Just moka pots, pour-overs and a small chalkboard menu. The coffee was excellent. And then there was Slow, the most energetic, most irresistibly cute puppy, whose name told you everything you needed to know about the place. Our son Damien played with her while we finished our cups. We did not rush. Slow would not have approved.
After that, the road got serious. The forest thickened. Villages disappeared. For long stretches it was just trees and road and the sound of the engine. Then, around one bend, the forest changed completely…
“Pine trees. Actual pine trees. Tall, straight, the air between them cool and sharp and sweet. For a moment it felt genuinely like driving through a Scandinavian forest in Summer. None of us said anything for about thirty seconds.”
When the Road Becomes the Adventure
It did not last long, but it did not need to. That sudden, disorienting shift from tropical mountain forest into something that felt utterly European stopped us in our tracks. The same feeling I remember from the moment we crossed from the Scottish mainland into the Highlands. That sense of the world changing register entirely, becoming quieter and wilder and somehow older and magical. The kind of moment where you look at each other and say nothing because there are no words that quite fit. Strange and beautiful in equal measure, and gone almost as soon as it appeared.
Then the forest opened up and the mood changed. The valleys below were scarred and stripped, the aftermath of the forest fires that had swept through the north earlier in the season. No smoke, no flames. Just the quiet evidence left behind. Blackened hillsides where green had been, a landscape that felt exposed and a little mournful.
And then the road disappeared entirely. A lake opened up to our left. Ahead of us, the tarmac simply dipped down into a stream and re-emerged on the other side like nothing had happened. No bridge. No sign. Just water running across the road and the quiet suggestion that we figure it out ourselves. The storm that had been following behind us all morning had not arrived yet, which meant the crossing was possible, in theory. So we stopped there for a moment, doing the calculations. Then a truck appeared from the other side and pushed through like it was nothing. That was all we needed. We followed. In a sedan. Hands gripping the wheel, hearts somewhere in our throats and then we were through, laughing, still not entirely sure how. It was a moment we would never forget.
Arriving at Pang Khon, Chiang Rai
Another hour and a half of narrowing, muddying road brought us to Pang Khon. For a village that produces a significant volume of Pang Khon Arabica coffee each year, the infrastructure is surprisingly underdeveloped. Broken roads, limited facilities, the kind of rural isolation that reminds you how little investment reaches these communities despite the value of what they produce. The village itself was quiet. Most families were out on their farms. But the scale of what we found when we arrived surprised us. This was the most developed coffee processing setup we had seen on the entire trip.
Khun Base, Meui and their Pang Khon Arabica Coffee, Chiang Rai Farm
We were met by Khun Base and Meui, our hosts at their Pang Khon arabica coffee, Chiang Rai farm. A couple who had recently taken over the family farm. A generational handover. Their farm covers 30 rai of land and they are far from alone up here. Pang Khon is home to at least 100 families, all farming coffee on these same mountain slopes. It is a proper, established Pang Khon arabica coffee community that has simply stayed under the radar.
The processing facility was the largest we had seen on this trip. Clearly, Pang Khon is built for volume as well as quality. The family has invested in the infrastructure to match their ambitions. Khun Base and Meui’s family alone can produce up to 10,000 kg of coffee per year. The scale of what this community produces collectively is extraordinary.
The coffee trees here grow in two distinct ways. Some plots are forest-grown, shaded by canopy and tucked between other trees, the same approach we had seen at Thepsadet, Khun Chang Khian and Doi Mod. But here there are also open plots where the coffee grows alongside macadamia and avocado trees. Walking through those rows felt different. More structured, more agricultural, a different kind of beauty from the wild forest farms.
Macadamia and avocado. Two of my absolute favourites and there they were, growing right alongside the coffee plants like someone had designed this farm specifically with me in mind. Delicious arabica, crunchy macadamias, creamy avocado, all in one place!
The Unique Taste Of Pang Khon Arabica Coffee Chiang Rai
Pang Khon arabica coffee, Chiang Rai is one of the most versatile origins we work with. At medium roast it is immediately approachable. Fruity and smooth in a way that works brilliantly as a drip or a long black. Taken darker, it becomes something more complex and layered, with herbal and dark chocolate notes that hold up beautifully through milk.
It is one of the key components in our Siam Roast blend and several of our arabica-robusta blends. The fruitiness it brings lifts a dark blend in a way that few other Thai origins can match.
A Coffee Farm Still Writing Its Story
What struck us most about Pang Khon was the sense of transition. A young couple who have just taken over from their parents. A processing setup that is clearly capable of more. An origin already contributing to some of our most loved products, but that most coffee drinkers have never heard of.
The broken roads that lead here feel like a metaphor. The land is there. The knowledge is there. The quality is there. What is still catching up is the infrastructure, the recognition and the market access that a community like this deserves.
That is exactly why we are here.
“We drove through a flooded road, a pine forest that felt like Europe and two and a half hours of broken mountain track to reach this Pang Khon coffee farm in Chiang Rai. Every kilometre was worth it.”
Susan ☕ Founder, Coffee Culture Thailand May 2026