About Us
Strong Danu women in coffee
Coffee first came to Myanmar in 1885 with the missionaries. It was only introduced to southern Shan plateau in 1930. This is stretching back to my great great great grandparents. From that time onwards, our family has grown coffee.
Around early 1924, the British brought the coffee culture, mostly staying in Kawlaw and Yangon, 22 km from Ywangan.
Ywangan, ZayTan Quarter, is a key coffee area due to its elevation and high quality, red soils, plentiful sunshine and rain. Both of my grandmothers were involved in coffee. My father’s mother had a little coffee farm growing S795. This is one of the first rust-resistant Arabica cultivars developed by Indian breeders in the 1940s. It is well suited to our lands and grows vigorously.
The bloom of white fragrant coffee flowers growing in clusters along the branch was inexplicably enchanting and magical to me as a child. Coffee flowers have become my lifelong childhood memory of joy and hope.
I recall helping my grandmother harvest dark red cherries. I grew up watching her processing coffee. Coffee was then a rudimental process. The dried cherry was hulled by pounding.
Every year, I looked forward to going to the village for the Shwe Pwint Lin festival and learning coffee trading from my grandmother.
I grew up with strong women mentors. I saw them harvesting and selling coffee to earn money. One day, I wanted to buy a dress and shoes. So I collected fallen, bright red cherries, prepared the coffee and sold it to my mum. An early childhood memory, I enjoyed the feeling of earning and wearing a lovely dress from my efforts and initiative.
In April and May, our grandparents sold the coffee to pay for inputs for other crops. In February, my family sold coffee to pay for the education of their four daughters, with Ms. Su Su number 2.
Learning the coffee trade
My father sadly passed away in 1983. I often travelled with my mother to help her trade coffee. In 2018, she and I planted coffee on 0.4 ha. I learnt a lot from this, checking the green bean quality with the surrounding farmers.
I also learnt about the importance of dry beans. Everyone processed their coffee using the traditional method of naturals, dried in the sun. Through the heat of the day, we weaved the collecting baskets to transport the coffee. We sold the green bean to Aung Pan City Market, about 70 km by truck.
In 2004, we planted Arabica Catuai on the advice of an FAO project.
From 2014–2019, the USAID-funded Winrock International Value Chains for Rural Development (VCRD) project trained Myanmar producers in specialty coffee. I learnt how to process specialty coffee, and the importance of value adding, and marketing.
VCRD was a very intense project. We also learned about growing, harvesting, post-harvest, processing, cupping, price negotiation based on risk and inputs, and marketing. I practiced and practiced.
The experts gave us hands-on demonstrations over one week. They demonstrated each step in accordance with processing standards set by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). International experts checked our processing techniques at our farm, and we started to see better returns for farmers and the potential for growing high quality Arabica.
First steps and success
In 2016, I started to trade coffee beans and process specialty coffee, including naturals and washed coffee. At this time, I was a young woman. In my first year of processing (2016), my coffee scored:
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82 fully washed, now 84+
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84.5 naturals, now 85+
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Honeys, now 84+
I won second place for my black honey processed coffee at the Myanmar Coffee Cupping Competition in 2022.
In 2017, using an in-kind grant from the VCRD project, I opened Amayar CWS, dry mill, warehouse, and office near Zaydan Quarter, Ywangan, on 1.8 ha.
In 2018, Ywangan Amayar was fully operational.