Shade-grown coffee from a 1,300-metre upstream forest.

The place

At 1,300 metres above sea level, in the highland village of Mae Daet Noi — about 90 kilometres from Chiang Mai — Yosniyom's coffee terraces sit tucked into an upstream forest, alive with biodiversity. Great coffee begins long before it reaches a roaster: it starts in the soil, thrives in the shade, is nurtured by careful hands, and sustained by a community that knows its land intimately.

Why Frank went

We'd been buying Yosniyom's green coffee for some time before we felt the pull to visit — to say hello, and to see firsthand where it all begins. So Frank went. His host drove him around, showing him the villages, the farmers, the coffee trees, and introducing him to the heart of their community.

How it's grown

The steep slopes and crisp mountain air are ideal for slow, steady bean development. Yosniyom works closely with local hill-tribe growers, cultivating coffee beneath the forest canopy, and also acts as a central processing hub for the beans from these local farms. This natural, shade-grown method supports biodiversity and suits varietals like Typica, valued for clarity and sweetness, and Catimor, valued for resilience.

Harvesting is selective and hands-on — pickers take only the ripest cherries. Afterward, the cherries are float-graded, a simple but effective way of separating the denser, ripe fruit from the rest.

What makes it distinct

Mountain terroir, shade-grown cultivation, careful varietal choice, and selective picking add up to coffee that speaks clearly of where it's from. Yosniyom's coffees have ranked as high as 8th in the Cup of Excellence, and consistently show what you'd expect from high-altitude, shade-grown beans: bright clarity, layered sweetness, and a clean finish.

One integrated chain

In Thailand, there's a real understanding that everyone in the chain — the farmer tending the trees, the processor handling the cherries, the roaster finishing the job — is part of the same effort. A mistake by one affects everyone, which builds a shared sense of responsibility for getting it right at every step.