Where is Chieng Ban coffee from?

Chieng Ban is a mountainous community located in Mai Son District, Son La Province. Almost residents living at Chieng Ban is ethnic minority people with very difficult life. Due to growing coffee, especially Arabica, their life is becoming much better and they got out of the poverty.

Chieng Ban owns all the favorable conditions to develop the coffee trees. The weather is hot and humid with a huge amount of rainfall in summer and cold and dry in winter, which is very ideal for the growth of coffee Arabica. The coffee trees are planted on the mountain sides with the height of 600-1200 meters above the sea level that is the perfect height for them to provide the high quality coffee beans. Moreover, Chieng Ban is located in between 21°N and 26°N in latitude – the same location to Minas Gerais in Sao Paulo, Brazil (the best land for coffee growing). These great conditions create super scrumptious Chieng Ban coffee Arabica.

Chieng Ban coffee is developing

After 20 years growing coffee, Chieng Ban coffee now has 950 hectares in total area of coffee cultivating. The whole community has 1,401 households, of which there are 70% own over 1 hectare of coffee. There are 300 households having from 2 to 5 hectares. Each hectare of coffee can bring at least 100 million VND per year.

In 1,564 ha of agriculture area, 1200 ha is for coffee trees. The annual income from coffee is always over 100 billion VND. Thanks to the coffee trees, the life of local people has been improved a lot.

To have the success like today, Chieng Ban’s residents overcame plenty of challenges. At first, they tried some other plants such as sugar cane, basil plant, mulberry, etc. but they failed. And when they turn to Arabica coffee trees, they got the first positive signs, but still very difficult because of the lack of knowledge and techniques. The poor understanding about coffee cultivating and processing made them lose a lot of times. After that, the leaders of the community called up the help from outside sources, including private investors, the government and related organizations to support them the science and technology aspects. And together with the constant efforts of the locals, Chieng Ban coffee has become a giant in coffee production in Vietnam.

A promising future for Chieng Ban coffee

Thanks to the support of natural environment, Chieng Ban coffee, especially the Arabica coffee, has a very good quality and gets the preference from international coffee drinkers. Its taste and its smell are perfect which is as the same as the best coffee in Brazil. Chieng Ban coffee is the country’s second most popular area for growing Arabica coffee (after Cau Dat in Da Lat City).

The chairman of Chieng Ban People’s Committee said that Chieng Ban will continue to develop the coffee trees as the most important agriculture product in here. They will not focus on widening the area for growing coffee tree, but try to improve the science and technology’s application in order to enhance the quality of the beans and make Chieng Ban coffee become an international coffee brand around the world.

To sum up, Chieng Ban coffee is a Vietnam’s famous single origin coffee. The origin is located in the Far North Western area in Vietnam. It shares the same altitude and conditions of many famous single estate coffees across the globe such as Kona from Hawaii, Sao Paulo in Brazil and so on. Together with Cau Dat’s arabica, Chieng Ban coffee possesses unique and charming taste and aroma which you should try.