Shwe Taung Thu farmers group, which translates to ‘Golden Farmer’, is made up of Danu and Pa-O smallholder farmers who are producing specialty coffee in the Ywangan area of Southern Shan State, in the east part of Myanmar. The group provides leadership, finance, technical assistance and market linkages for its members with the objective of bringing fairer trade conditions for its coffees.

Coffees produced by Shwe Taung Thu are named after the villages where the coffee is grown and processed. Each community has its own working group which is responsible for managing the processing of the coffee within each village. The focus is exclusively on producing dry naturals – the climate and terroir is particularly suited to this process, with very dry heat during the harvest season providing excellent conditions for drying.

A Lel Chaung is named after the village in which this coffee is grown which comprises 180 households.  It is an exceptionally clean and bright natural processed coffee, which really reflects the meticulous attention to detail – three groups of seven villagers work on rotation to hand sort the cherry.