Specialty coffee from Laos – a rarity
In recent years, a real Jhai fan community has developed. We are all the more pleased that we are now bringing back our alltime favourite robusta espresso.
This is one of the very few specialty Robusta or „fine Robusta“ to be found in Laos.
Under the name of „Jing Jhai Coffee Cooperative“ (JJCC), this cooperative in the Bolaven Plateau was formed to produce and export coffee together. The special thing about JJCC is that for a few years now they have been working hard to improve the quality of their coffee. With the support of coffee experts and an NGO, the cooperative has managed to bring its quality well above the normal Lao coffee quality. Our former employees Adrian and Isi themselves spent several months on site in 2015 to support the Jhai cooperative in its great goal of bringing coffee quality up to the level of speciality coffees.
The coffee is grown in forest gardens on Canephora plants (colloquially called Robusta), which are more than 60 years old and some of them are 5 meters high and therefore have to be picked exclusively by hand on a ladder. After picking, the coffee cherries are placed in water to sort out the „floaters“ as unripe cherries. The cherries are then de-stemmed and the slippery layer of sugar (the mucilage) is left on the beans to dry, allowing the sweetness of the pulp to soak into the beans and giving the coffee a much more sweet taste.
The amount of Robusta that JJCC produces is comparatively small, so this year we can only include this coffee in our portfolio to a limited extent. So, grab it while the Jhai is there!
