Meticulous care, soaring quality

Myanmar’s southern Shan state has produced some of our favorite coffees the last few years. A coffee farm at sunset, photographed by Blue Bottle coffee sourcing team member Kevin Thaxton.

The quality of Myanmar coffee has skyrocketed in just the last few years, ever since the country opened itself up to international trade—and specialty coffee—in 2014.

Blue Bottle has been sourcing coffee from Myanmar since 2016, when our then-green coffee buyer, Charlie Habegger, first visited Mya Ze Di, a tiny agricultural community in the hills of Myanmar's southern Shan State, in 2016.

Coffea arabica was first introduced to Myanmar by its British colonizers in the late nineteenth century, around the same time the crop arrived in Latin America. But unlike the developmental arc that established the New World as a coffee powerhouse, coffee culture in Myanmar remained stifled due to decades of political unrest marked by a military dictatorship, as well as one of the world’s longest-running civil wars.

Natural-processed coffee drying in the sun at Mya Ze Di, a small agricultural community in the hills of Myanmar's southern Shan State

In addition to the fascinating flavors, what really excites us about the southern Shan State in particular is the amount of progress the coffee industry has made in the last few years. As recently as four years ago, it was rare to see Burmese coffee in specialty cafes. Because the quality was very low, it was only sold domestically or in neighboring countries.

Through funding from USAID and organizations such as Winrock International and the Coffee Quality Institute, coffee in Shan State has been completely transformed. The coffee there is meticulously picked, processed, and sorted. Even when they are processed naturally (so the beans dry with the fruit intact), the coffees taste exceptionally clean. Quality is improving every year in this region, and the specialty coffee world is catching on.

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