Journal — January 2025

Hey y’all! Caleb here. This feature is really special to me, and I’m so glad we get to share it with you to start 2025. I first met Makhawan Kijyakonont (whose friends call him View) a decade ago in 2015. At the time, he was running the coffee program at Hands & Heart, a Bangkok roastery/cafe that stopped me in my tracks.

I asked him to pick his favorite from their hand brew options, assuming he’d select a pretty expensive Costa Rican gesha for me. But instead he picked a Thai offering. I was a little nervous, as I’d never enjoyed a Thai coffee before. Then, when he brought it out, I assumed he’d changed his mind, because it tasted exactly like my favorite Kenyan coffee. View beamed, and just said, “I told you.” He went on to explain how Thailand is unique in that it is one of the only coffee producing countries with a really large local market of coffee consumers. Most coffee-producing countries are former European colonies, so their industries are all centered around export. But Thailand was never colonized, and while tourists fill Thai cafes, the local coffee-enjoying market is booming too. So farmers can easily grow lots in partnership with specific roasters.

The result of these unique market conditions mean that coffee farmers in Thailand have rapidly made massive improvements to the quality of Thai coffee, without relying on the international coffee market—and largely without the Specialty Coffee world even knowing that it’s happening.

During the pandemic, Hands & Heart was bought out and much of the original team started new projects.

View founded Hai Coffee, and has been sending me samples since then. He’s finally ready to share what he has been working on at a larger scale, and I’m so pleased with the results of all his and his team’s hard work. Each of the offerings he sent us are impressive in their own right. The Doi Tung Extended Fermentation Honey is especially soft and silky; it reminds me more of a white tea than a coffee. View sourced it with our feature in mind, and I’m obsessed with it. The Tirtira Goyo too is such a lovely expression of a Guji offering. It’s pretty classic in the flavor profile you’d expect from an Ethiopian coffee, but with a beautifully delicate touch that I know you’ll love.

One note moving forward: as we figure out how to navigate the complexities of imports with changing tariff and trade policies, we’ll be featuring some fantastic US roasters with y’all. It’s hard to plan around policies that have, at least so far, been changing day to day, and I don’t want your coffee stuck in the middle. So hopefully we’ll be back on our global roaster game soon, but in the meantime, know that we’ve got some very fun coffees coming from some roasters I really love and am excited to highlight for you all. Khap khun krap!