Coffee on the Plateau

I drove from the capital of Laos, Vientiane, south down to the Bolaven Plateau, almost the Cambodian border. As I drove up onto the plateau the temperature dropped 6 degrees as I climb to 1300m, a massive relief when in my riding gear. The French successfully established coffee plantations here in the 1930s and now produce up to 20,000 tonnes a year with a 80% Robusta and 20% Arabica. The Ho Chi Minh Trail passes through the plateau and the US carpet bomb the whole area, there are still huge numbers of UXO (unexploded ordnance).

I met a Dutch guy in Paksong who roasts and sells coffee. There is a specialty coffee which is made when weasels eat the coffee berries, unable to digest the nut inside the coffee bean ends up in their dung. The dung is then collected, washed, the bean is extracted and processed. It may sound a little gross but produced a very nice cup of coffee with delicate fruit flavours.