Visiting the Thailand La Mai Project
By Stuart Grant
This is pretty exciting.
On Saturday, roaster Stu will be joining a number of others involved with Bright Hope Australia on a trip to Thailand! The aim of the trip is to visit some of the projects happening there including, of course, the La Mai coffee project. Our visit will coincide with the middle of this year's coffee harvest and will be an important part of the trip.
We hope to learn more about how the coffee is farmed and processed in the region - Northern Thailand up in the hills from the city of Chiang Mai - and what we can do to better support the project. We're really proud to be able to do this! It will be our first visit to a coffee growing region outside of Australia, and represents a significant step forward in our aim as a company to close the gap between growers and consumers to support ethical coffee trade.
The trip will also make connections with other projects that our partners at Bright Hope are involved with, including one rescuing girls out of prostitution and rehabilitating them into communities such as those growing the coffee. We can't guarantee (m)any to-the-minute updates while we're visiting remote parts of Thailand, but keep an eye on the blog (and maybe Facebook/Twitter) to see lots of photos and news as soon as we can get it there! The new crop will hopefully get to Australia in April.