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Slow Boat From Burma

Agriculture
Economic Development
Slow Boat From Burma
Burma
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On June 19, a large container ship left the port of Rangoon, Burma (also known as Myanmar), with the first shipment of specialty Burmese coffee beans destined for a North American market. These aren’t just any beans. Years of hard work went into their production, and the pride of a new coffee market rides with them.

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Many Burmese smallholder coffee growers are women.

Burma has been growing coffee for more than a century, but growers have only recently aimed for the exclusive specialty market. The journey from commodity to specialty grade was a surprisingly swift one brought about by well-run farms and eager farmers (including many women smallholders) willing to embrace new production methods.

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One of the new techniques that’s helped prepare Burmese specialty coffee for the world market is drying cherries on a raised, mesh-topped table rather than on the ground.

Now Burmese coffee has made its world debut at a recent tasting in Atlanta.  You can read more about its success — and Winrock’s part in it — in articles published in Roast Magazine and on Devex.com and the Atlas Coffee Importers website.

When the coffee bean cargo arrives later this month, the 36-ton shipment will be split between East Coast and West Coast markets, says Tim May, a communications and outreach specialist with Value Chains for Rural Development, a USAID-funded project run by Winrock International. There it will take its place among other prized Arabica beans.

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Burmese specialty coffee beans are double bagged in both jute and polyethylene.

May and his team have been heavily involved with Burmese coffee, even helping farmers design a logo for the new brand. It’s a profile of a female Myanmar farmer wearing a native hat. Her face is marked with thanaka cream, a distinctive yellow paste made of ground bark.

“There aren’t many ‘undiscovered’ coffee growing places left; most of them are already known,” says May.  But you might have to search to find a fine cup of java in the country itself. In Burma, most people drink tea.

https://winrock.org/video/first-ever-coffee-cupping-competition-in-rangoon-burma-may-2015/

Stay tuned for more stories on Burmese coffee.

Related

  • Value Chains for Rural Development in Burma (VC-RD)

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