Beyond Fair Trade

by Mark Pendergrast

  But Wicha and Adel grew unhappy with this arrangement and accused the processing groups of delivering inferior beans. They suspected that people were buying cheaper beans from lower elevations and otherwise cutting corners on proper fermentation, depulping, and drying. In 2010, Doi Chaang Coffee bought a large, expensive processor, enabling them to purchase the ripe coffee cherries directly from the farmers, thus cutting out the middlemen processors. Aja remained extremely bitter about this development. “Together, we worked hard to develop the business, to get the Geographical Indication registration completed. Then they abandoned us.” He blamed Wicha for influencing Adel.

  The AAA Doi Chang Coffee Farm, just down the road on the opposite side from Doi Chaang Coffee, is owned by Adel’s first cousin Apa, who was another of the nine original processors. The AAA managers roast their own coffee and rent out guesthouses. They also host the “Korea Barista School,” where Korean baristas can come for a few days to see how the coffee they brew is grown, harvested, and processed.

  I had known that the new processing machinery, installed in 2010, allowed Doi Chaang Coffee to buy directly from the farmers, thus guaranteeing that the coffee was authentic and grown locally. But I hadn’t realized what bitterness this rift had caused. When I asked, Adel explained that it had been a difficult decision, but he was in no way Wicha’s puppet. “Wicha had a big heart. He was always working, always thinking. People spread rumors that Wicha was using the Akha, but the ultimate goal was to help the farmers. If you listen to rumors, you won’t do anything, you’ll just lie in your bed and worry.” He and Wicha were true partners, he said, and they discussed everything together.

  Adel said that some of their coffee had been rejected for low quality in 2009. He had tried to talk with the head of each processing group, but each said, “It’s not my problem. You have to take responsibility.” So he held an emotional meeting in which he announced his plans to eliminate the middlemen processors. “Yes, I had to cut off my own brother Leehu and my friends.” In the four years since that decision, Adel had tried to rebuild trust and relationships. “I still give advice and counsel. I will help anyone who is struggling.” His brother Leehu, unlike Aja, had fully reconciled.

  I asked Adel whether they would be able to carry on without Wicha’s charismatic leadership. “Wicha is irreplaceable,” Adel said. “No other man in the world could do all that he did. But yes, of course we will carry on.” Wicha was the company’s public face, but everyone worked to execute his ideas behind the scenes, and Adel and Miga were confident that they could continue effectively. I asked if Adel would be comfortable talking to the media, and he said he would. “It’s always easy to tell the truth.”

  The Quiet Coffee Millionaire

  TEE TOLD ME that I really ought to see one more coffee operation that no one had told me about. Beche Coffee lay off the dirt road that ran behind the Doi Chaang coffeehouse. I had driven to the end of that road with Leebang to see his Doi Yama Coffee, but now Tee and I turned left off the road and came to a compound where a brightly colored truck was being loaded with coffee, part of four containers that would be shipped from Bangkok to a broker in Indonesia. Inside the warehouse, full burlap bags of coffee were stacked along a wall behind a long table at which women were sorting through piles of green coffee beans.

  Precha Beche, thirty-nine, was busy monitoring the operation. Tall and thin, with close-cropped hair, he didn’t look like a typical Akha, nor did he have the friendly, outgoing manner of Adel. Instead, he was low-key, with the matter-of-fact manner of a powerful businessman used to getting his way. On the main road through the village, he owns a gas station, mini-mart, commercial space, fifty apartment units, and a coffeehouse with a small roaster that he said was just there for show. Precha explained that he had begun buying land in Doi Chang in 1992, when he was seventeen years old, starting with 20 rai, and planting coffee, when no one saw any future in it. People thought he was crazy, but he kept buying land. He now owned 700 rai of coffee in Doi Chang, high on the road to Ban Mai, and another 500 rai at a lower elevation near the town of Wawi, where he grew trees imported from Java.

  He also buys coffee from many other places, including Mae Suai, Doi Lan, Huey San, Wawi, and as far away as Nan Province, negotiating payment depending on the quality level. Then he grades them all, selling into both the specialty and commodity-grade market, shipping to brokers in Indonesia (two-thirds goes there), Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, and Malaysia. He sells about a million kilograms (a thousand tons) of coffee per year, about half of Doi Chaang Coffee’s production. He also keeps a low profile.

  Precha converted to Christianity when he was fourteen, but that did not prevent him from marrying three women—one Akha, one Lisu, and one Thai—though he now has only two wives and eleven children. He flew to Brazil in 2012 to look at huge automatic coffee harvesting machines that shake cherries loose, and he planned to return there to purchase the first such harvester to be used in Thailand. He would use it to harvest robusta coffee trees that he would plant in the lowland near Chiang Rai, where he already owned 1,000 acres.

  He was skeptical about how much credit should be given to Wicha for his (Precha’s) success. “Wicha was a trend-maker, who made the name Doi Chaang famous for world-class coffee, but the name is meaningless to me. I only care for customer satisfaction.” He buys coffee beans from anywhere to resell, not just from the Geographical Indication area around Doi Chang. Yet I couldn’t help thinking that his location in Doi Chang must have contributed to his success.

  Good-bye to Doi Chang

  MY LAST NIGHT in Doi Chang, I had dinner alone with Miga in the small covered area next to the kitchen on the far side of the Academy of Coffee. She told me that this was where she found Wicha the morning of his heart attack. Usually she was hesitant to speak English with me, but now she forgot to be anxious. “I miss Khun Wicha too much,” she said, lighting another cigarette. Three weeks before, as I sat next to the wall by the fire, I had said, “This was Wicha’s place,” and Miga had blurted out, “Everywhere around here is Wicha’s place.”

  Now she told me that every night she and Wicha would talk seriously for an hour or so. He didn’t joke with her, as he did with others. He reviewed the day, telling her what she did right or wrong. He taught her that she must learn to control herself, or she would be controlled by someone else. She cried as she told me this and said that she rarely cried in front of anyone. Yes, she had cried when Khun John first came after Wicha’s death. “He is a good man, and so is John Leck [Darch Junior] and Anand.” I got up and hugged her. She apologized. I told her it was good to cry.

  She remembered how Wicha would teach her things. “Miga, see that red flower? That means that the rainy season is about to begin.” Or “Miga, see that yellow plant? That means that there will be a good harvest.” Things like that. She said she did not like to dream about Wicha, because then she woke up to the reality. “He was like a father to me.” And she stamped out her last cigarette of the night.

  The next day, I said my good-byes to Miga, Adel, Nuda, and everyone who had called me Abopala. Good-bye, Doi Chang, unique, alive, beautiful, complex, growing, changing, compelling coffee village.

  What Next?

  WHAT DOES THE future hold for the two interrelated ventures on either side of the globe, both relatively recent, both very much works in progress? The Canadian Doi Chaang Coffee enterprise was small but growing, with gross sales breaking $3 million in 2014. With the help of food broker Danny Tam, the company began to expand further in Ontario through deals with Sobeys East Stores, which provided a wedge to get onto Sobeys West shelves back in British Columbia. In ninety Loblaw stores, Doi Chaang Aroma cups were being tested in bins in the coffee aisle, where customers could grab a capsule or two as an impulse buy. “We see more customers demanding organic Fair Trade products in the Toronto area,” Darch Senior said, “so we are arriving at a good time.” Meanwhile Canterbury’s John McGowan, based in Oakville, Ontario, was finding smaller diners, resta
urants, and university accounts.

  The company’s European expansion also seemed encouraging. DRWakefield, the UK green coffee bean importer, bought three Doi Chaang containers in 2014, then resold them to various roasters to whom the Akha Beyond Fair Trade story was appealing. Ben Roberts, owner of Beanpress Coffee Company in Dorset, was one of those roasters who bought a few bags of Doi Chaang beans. He loved both the coffee and the story. Then, when he discovered that Terry Darch, the younger brother of the founder, lived only 20 miles away, he got in touch, which led to a meeting in 2014 with John Darch Senior and Junior. Roberts hoped to establish himself as an agent for Doi Chaang in the UK, becoming a master roaster and distributor. “The United Kingdom sends a million tourists a year to Thailand,” he said. “We love Thai cuisine and culture, but people don’t know about great Thai coffee, despite the coffee boom.”

  That same year, Oro Caffè, based in Udine in northeastern Italy, bought its first container of Doi Chaang beans and began to promote them heavily on its Italian website and in its advertising. Elisa Toppano, the founder’s daughter and heir apparent, planned to purchase two containers the following year. Oro Caffè used Doi Chaang beans in its premium blend as well as selling it as a single-origin choice, with sales in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Saudi Arabia. Younger sister Ketty Toppano moved to Toronto to start a Canadian branch of the Italian company, so the cobranded Doi Chaang-Oro Caffè beans, roasted in Italy, were now being sold in Ontario, just as beans from the Vancouver company were becoming more popular there as well.

  The Darches had yet to figure out how to crack the huge, enticing market to their south in the United States, at least in any meaningful way. Yet Doi Chaang certainly had devotees there, such as Henry Kalebjian, owner of Henry’s House of Coffee in San Francisco. An Armenian immigrant who had been roasting at the same location since 1981, Kalebjian adored Doi Chaang’s taste. “There is no acidic aftertaste, it’s smooth with a brown sugar sweetness, rich and nutty,” he said. “There is a magic inside. You can drink cup after cup without tiring of it.” He gave away roasted samples, even to people he waylaid in the supermarket coffee aisle. “And every single person comes back to my shop to buy it.”

  Meanwhile, in Vancouver there were a number of staff changes. Near the end of 2014, Anand Pawa, who had served as such a vital link between the Canadian and Thai businesses, announced that he was moving back to Bangkok, where his aging father wanted him to take over the family business, selling medical equipment. Anand Pawa hoped to remain involved with Doi Chaang, continuing to serve as an advisor for those in Thailand as well as Canada.

  Around the same time, public relations manager Katharine Sawchuk resigned in order to return to school. “My two years at Doi Chaang have been special and fulfilling,” she said. “I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together as a team, and what I have done with the company’s communications (both online and offline) from the ground up. It’s exciting to hear more people gush about how much they love the coffee in person and on social media. It makes me happy I was able to put Doi Chaang’s reputation as a sustainable, ethical and high quality coffee out there in front of the coffee-loving public. I’m leaving a group of intelligent, unique and caring individuals. They will be greatly missed.”

  To replace Katharine Sawchuk and Anand Pawa, the Darches hired Brittany Brown, a young woman with a diploma in public relations with experience in social media, brand awareness, promotions, and strategic planning. She had also spent three years managing Esquires Coffee House in South Surrey, near Vancouver. She described herself as “creative and passionate” and said that she thrived in quick-paced environments.

  That same fall, sales manager Sanja Grcic married and moved to Croatia. To give fuller attention to existing accounts, and seek new ones, George Goldsmith, a veteran food products salesman in his forties, came aboard in late August 2014 as the first full-time sales rep for Doi Chaang Coffee in Canada. He spent every day on the road visiting retail outlets, making sure stores were fully stocked, setting up sampling demonstrations, and meeting with store managers. In his first three months, he was able to add ten new accounts, such as Gourmet Warehouse and Budget Foods. “I think we’re just scratching the surface with this company,” he said. “There is definitely opportunity out there.” Although he only showed up at the office for Tuesday morning sales meetings, he was impressed with the energetic, idealistic, goal-oriented team there. Ironically, Goldsmith didn’t drink coffee himself, but he believed in the Beyond Fair Trade concept and felt that the story behind the coffee was important.

  Tanya Jacoboni took over some of Grcic’s role in dealing with accounts with head office purchasers, with whom she organized promotions, advertising spending, and any other matters best dealt with at the main office. She supervised Goldsmith and any other sales people who might be added, as well as dealing with all brokers and distributors.

  In the village of Doi Chang, the Akha were continuing to grow and thrive, with plans to expand their coffeehouses into other countries, launch the cordyceps business, and encourage the growth of coffee trees on up to 10,000 acres within the Geographic Indication region near the mountaintop. To handle all of the beans, the company installed a new processing plant down the mountain in Mae Suai, next to a second large drying patio.

  Phitsanuchai Kaewphichai, the Thai entrepreneur who served as Wicha’s unpaid background advisor for many years, began to take a more active role following his friend’s death and now became Khun Ar Phitsanu—Uncle Phitsanu—to the Akha. He began the process of standardizing Doi Chaang coffeehouses throughout Thailand, for the first time applying stringent quality codes to any establishment that displayed the Doi Chaang logo. By the end of 2015, he planned to have one hundred official Thai franchises, in addition to 200 independent coffeehouses that used the village’s beans. Malaysia would have eighteen Doi Chaang coffeehouses, China would have five, Korea hosted three, and one opened in Singapore, with ongoing negotiations for franchises in India, Japan, Cambodia, and Australia. Anand Pawa, now back in Thailand, traveled to India to set up a Doi Chaang Coffee franchise system there, with plans to open the first coffeehouse in Mumbai early in 2016.

  Phitsanu also owned several Doi Chaang coffeehouse locations in Asian airports and met frequently with Adel and Miga in Doi Chang and in Bangkok with Paolo Fantaguzzi, who was finalizing the design of his brewer, grinder, and roaster, and who imported all other coffee machinery and set up other services for coffeeshops.

  Adel and Miga planned to have long-term infrastructure in place and paid for within three to five years, so that they could begin to take profits rather than plowing them back into capital improvements. They hoped no longer to have to borrow money to pay for coffee cherries every harvest season. They would then begin to pump 30 percent of their profits into the Doi Chaang Coffee Foundation, which would fund a new day care, school, and hospital for the village and surrounding area.

  All of these plans received a big boost in November 2014, when, after six months of negotiation, Adel, Miga, and others at Doi Chaang Coffee Original announced a new joint venture with Vara Food & Drink Company, a non-alcoholic subsidiary of Singha Corporation, a wealthy organization that makes the most popular Thai beer. This new entity, unpoetically named DVS 2014 Company (D for Doi Chaang, V for Vara Food, and S for Singha), would be the sole distributor for both raw and roasted beans and other Doi Chaang products, aside from existing clients, such as the Vancouver roasting company, which already dealt directly with Doi Chaang Coffee Original, the parent Thai company. But in the future, as current agreements expired, or clients agreed, the new joint venture would handle that distribution as well. John Darch Senior and Junior planned to continue to deal directly with Miga and Adel in Doi Chang village, as they always had. “DVS 2014 will mainly handle our retail market such as capsule coffee,” said Phitsanu, “and will sell our roasted coffee beans in modern trade outlets.”

  The immediate impact of the Singha investment was the ability to purchase half of t
he 2014–2015 season’s coffee cherries without having to borrow money. The harvest came from approximately 6,000 acres of producing coffee trees, which yielded 10,000 tons of coffee cherries. Once processed, that produced 2,000 tons of parchment coffee. Half would be financed and sold to DVS, while the other half would go to Doi Chaang in Canada and elsewhere.

  Now it appeared that plans to fund the Doi Chaang Coffee Foundation and its projects could go forward much more quickly. Not only would 30 percent of Doi Chaang Coffee Original’s profits go into the Foundation, but so would 15 percent of the DVS profits. In addition, Khun Santi Bhirombhakdi, Singha’s chairman, pledged to contribute supplementary funds from his personal foundation. Plans for a new day care center in Doi Chang village, to accommodate the growing number of children in the boomtown, were a first priority.

  As the Advisory Chairman of Doi Chaang Coffee Original, “Uncle Phitsanu” would monitor the new joint venture, along with the Doi Chaang coffeeshop franchises and another joint venture with Ital-Thai Services Company, Paolo Fantaguzzi’s coffee brewers and roasters, imported machines, and service.

  EPILOGUE

  Lessons from Two Continents

  AS WITH MOST ongoing stories, we are left with more questions than answers. Can Doi Chaang Coffee of Vancouver provide a model for a new form of capitalism, as John Darch Senior hoped? Or is this nothing more than a quixotic, well-intended venture by a wealthy investor who wanted to leave his mark on the world by doing something meaningful for the Akha? How much did the Akha side depend on Wicha Promyong’s energy and enthusiasm to succeed and to maintain its success? Can the village handle its sudden wealth gracefully? Will the joint venture with Singha mean that the Akha become just another part of the corporate world? Will other villages—in Thailand or other countries—be able to replicate this success? How have the two cultures, Canadian and Thai/Akha, meshed or clashed? What lessons can the Doi Chaang Coffee experience teach the world of the future in social, cultural, ethical, and business terms?