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Bangkok's coffee scene gets a much-needed shot of energy

Posted: 07 Aug 2013 03:00 PM PDT

Instant 3-in-1 coffee packets be damned -- this city is finally clueing into the necessity of a fine roast

Expats and young Thais clad in retro dresses, skinny trousers or beards recline outside on a cushioned bench along a clapboard wall.

Past a metal and glass door, in a tiny, brick-lined room, a wooden communal table is also packed with the young and scruffily beautiful.

People heading to the bathroom have to squeeze past a man with large headphones spinning vinyl on a turntable.

It's not a hipster party. It's 4 p.m. on a Saturday, and the location is Casa Lapin X49, one of the most popular new coffee shops in Bangkok.

It's not a hipster party. It's Casa Lapin, one of the most popular cafes in Bangkok. A significant amount of Thailand's coffee "brewing" uses 3-in-1 instant packets from 7-Eleven or is done at street carts that sell milk-thickened concoctions for less than a dollar.

In Bangkok and other major cities, however, the upper crust of coffee shops brew international brands such as Illy or Lavazza and attract legions of Instagrammers with cutesy/industrial-chic/grungy/English tea-room decor.

Despite its overwhelming hipster appeal, there's more to Casa Lapin X49.

Co-owned by architect-turned-professional-coffee-aficionado, Suraphan "Tonk" Tanta, Casa Lapin is an important outpost in Bangkok's growing specialty coffee culture.

In addition to making excellent espresso drinks, it buys single-origin beans from Thai and international roasters, hand grinds them and prepares them to order with a drip cone or French press.

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"Some people complain that (our coffee) is sour or has too much acidity," Tonk admits. "Thai people drink dark, earthy, traditional coffee. But some people ask questions, and my neighbor is now coming here to be a part-time barista, because she wants to know more."

There's evidence around town that specialty coffee isn't just a passing youth trend.

Ceresia is one of a handful of boutique roasters in Bangkok. Ceresia opened just more than a month ago opposite an aging Japanese supermarket in Phrom Phong. The clientele is Westerners, Japanese expats and older Thai professionals stopping for a quick cup and a chat on their way to work.

Owned by Venezuelan sisters Marian and Lucia Aguilar and Lucia's husband Bret Asavaroengchai, Ceresia is also a boutique roaster; its freshly roasted beans are on display in the store.

The shop offers a brief informational pamphlet on the coffee farms they buy from, and a blackboard on the wall lists dates of the latest roasts.

"People really love that we offer coffees from different countries," Lucia says. "They come and say, 'I'd like to try this one today.'"

Both establishments understand the relative newness of specialty coffee in Bangkok and the importance of communicating with the customers.

Casa Lapin has recently opened a second, larger shop in the Ari neighborhood, and Tonk hopes the space will mean more interaction.

"We have an L-shaped bar, with an espresso bar on one side and a slow bar [for drip and French press] on the other side," he says. "People can come to buy and talk about coffee. People can go sit with the barista."

Ceresia serves some coffee styles that don't appear on most beverage menus in the city, such as café au lait, a filter shot and piccolo. Staffers help undecided customers make choices in line with their tastes.

"We have to talk a little bit more," says Marian, "but we try to get at what the customer really likes."

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Getting Thailand's coffee growers onboard

It remains to be seen what Thailand's emerging specialty coffee market means for local coffee production. Thailand harvests about 4,000 tons of coffee per year through government projects and private companies.

A member of the Lisu hill tribe picks Thai arabica coffee beans at the Thai High coffee farm in Phrao, northern Thailand. Still, most of this is non-specialty coffee sold to national restaurant chains and export demand isn't high.

A nearly 100% import tariff on foreign coffee beans has protected Thai production so far. But with ASEAN economic integration set to go into effect in 2015, Thai coffee will be on dangerously equal footing with Laotian, Vietnamese and Cambodian competition.

To stand a chance, Thailand will be forced to grow and process better coffee.

Ritthee Bunnag of Thailand's Royal Projects Foundation believes Thai coffee can be produced to specialty, single-origin standards.

But convincing farmers to do so is difficult.

"At the moment, the farmers can sell easily, so they're not concentrating on quality," Bunnag explains.

"If [farmers] do exactly what we tell them to do, the quality is going to be higher. Two Colombian advisors came a while ago to look at the quality. They said we could compete with [Colombia]."

The Royal Projects currently sells a small amount of its 200-300 ton annual yield to specialty roasters.

Owner of Thai High Ventures, American Ray Buerger isn't afraid to get his hands dirty at the Thai High coffee farm. Private enterprises like American expat Ray Buerger's Thai High Ventures work directly with pockets of coffee growers to produce high-quality beans fit for the specialty market, mostly in Singapore and Thailand.

Last year, they produced and sold 20 tons of green beans.

"Two years ago, I didn't know who to sell to," Buerger says. "This year, our market expanded into Thai people, because they're finding our products exceptional."

Varatt Vichit-Vadakan, who runs Roots Coffee Roasters in Bangkok and is a focal point of the roasting and brewing community, believes Thai High Ventures is bringing new flavors, ideas and techniques to coffee production in Thailand.

"Ray has been processing only farms that grow [different Arabica varietals] like caturra and catuai, which has much better innate flavor and complexity," Varatt says. "Ray also uses some of the world's best processing machines to produce super clean coffee for us."

Ceresia and Casa Lapin also currently sell or plan to sell Thai coffee, though the majority of their beans come from Indonesia, South and Central America and Africa.

How this partnership develops in the near future will depend on the coffee farmers of northern Thailand, but also on the demand from expats and hipsters in the cities.