The Lady - Honey
Impressions: cane sugar, strawberry, nougat, pomelo
Roast degree: (2/5)
Country: Myanmar - (Ywangan, Shan State)
Producer: The Lady Specialty Coffee - (Cherries are collected from dozens of women farmers from the Nwar Ban Gyi village)
Variety: Red Catuai
Process: Washed
Partner importer: IndoChina Coffee
We are thrilled to launch this coffee from The Lady Specialty in Myanmar. For the second year running, we offer you three different processes! (check out the washed and natural processes as well)
The Lady Specialty Coffee was created in 2017 by two leading producers and innovators of the Myanmar specialty scene, Su Nandar Linn and Thi Ha Gyawalie, to champion and support the women coffee farmers in Ywangan, southern Shan.
All of their coffees are produced exclusively by women (from Pa-O and Danu ethnic minority groups). Starting with 51 farmer partners, The Lady now operates in 7 villages and buys from 400 producers.
See our transparency report for more info on price paid and the financial/political situation of the country, and peep our impression page to see how we experienced this coffee, how we brew it and how it was processed!
This beautifully syrupy honey processed coffee from Myanmar is such a smooth experience.
The cane sugar and nougat notes make this coffee unbelievably sweet. If this sweetness feels like pure sugar in a filter brew, it transforms to something even more sweet as an espresso.
The coffee offers some nice citrusy acidity and we would describe this as pomelo, ands the nice strawberry flavours add a lot of complexity to the whole experience.
Processing
The unique way they process this coffee gives it so many lovely attributes. It's a combination of wet and dry fermentation using innovative carbonic maceration technique.
For the dry part, the cherries are places in sealed tanks with no water to help with body and sweetness. They are then moved to another tank, submerged in water. Only after those two processes will the pulp be removed and rinsed before drying for 12-15 days. (Since the honey process dries with more mucilage than the washed, a couple of extra days are needed.)
Prior to fermentation, time is of the essence: within 18 hours of harvest, cherries are floated to remove under ripe cherry before hand sorting to remove other defects, something that can be quite a challenging when working with dozens of farmers from different farms.
|
Method |
Dose | Ratio | Time |
| Espresso | 18 g | 2.2:1 | 30-34 sec |
| Espresso with milk | 18g | 2:1 | 32-36 sec |
| Americano | 18 g | 2.3:1 | 28-32 sec |
|
V60/Origami |
23 g | 16.5:1 | 3:30-4:00 min |
|
Chemex & Batch Brew |
40-60 g | 16:1 | 5:00-5:30 min |
|
French Press |
18-25 g | 15.5:1 |
4:30 min steep time |
Farmer: The Lady Specialty Coffee
Importer: IndoChina Coffee
Price we paid:
24.90CAD/kg
FOB price: 15.00CAD/kg
Farmgate price: 2600 - 3100MMK/KG of fresh cherries (roughly 1,80CAD/kg), which is three times more than the average market price.
The farmers receive a 20% share of the profits once the final transaction is completed with the buyer, IndoChina Coffee.
The bigger than normal gap between FOB (money staying at origin) and what we paid for the coffee can be explained by the simple fact that no one imports those coffee to Canada and the USA. This means we book the coffee well in advance, and we order them from a warehouse in the UK once they land there, making logistics quite expensive.
In late April, Myanmar was hit by a devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake, killing thousands. (It even had repercussion on Yunnan, Thailand and Vietnam, three other countries we buy from.) Tens of thousands more were displaced, adding to the 3.2 millions already displaced people since the 2021 coup.
The producing group was not hit, but they are actively involved in helping provide drinking water and supply, a testament to the importance of community.
The combined effect of covid, post coup sanctions and rising inflation has put an even greater than usual strain on the people of Myanmar, including coffee farmers.