Nepal

We are in Nepal. Haven't been here in 10 yrs. We are excited to find new products and do some walking through the country side.
I'll tell you all about it in a bit.

Buying cloth

Choosing the cloth for the clothes is the first exciting step in the process of making the clothes we have decided to produce for next season in Canada.
Here Steve is standing on a mountain of cloth choosing the prints that we want.

Next step is measuring it all out.

 

Finally we take it all to Tui our sewer along with the patterns.Here Steve and Sook discuss what is to be done.( Tui is recovering from a recent motorbike accident). In a month the finished clothes and bags will start to trickle back to be organised for shipping to Canada.

 

It is exciting to take an idea from conception through product development and then see the final product in our stores. We hope that you will also be as excited next season when you have the chance to see it at Bwana Johns.

 

Coffee

A few days ago we went up into the mountains. Doi Inthanon is the highest mountain in Thailand.
We visited a Karen Village on the way up. They grow coffee in this village. After  sampling some coffee we bought some green beans to roast for our new coffee business.

Here is a coffee bush with beans ripening. They'll be ready to harvest in December.

 

A basket showing a selection of coffee beans with the pulp still on, some green beans and beans already roasted.

 

The roasting used to be done with this machine. The fire was of bamboo sticks under the drum, and the drum with the coffee in it was rotated by the guy on the bicycle.

Now the drum is powered by a motor and the fire is gas. Way easier. There was coffee roasting in this machine while we were there.

 



Grinding the coffee ready for the taste test.

 

 Boiling the water to pour over the ground coffee beans.

No picture of us drinking the coffee, but it tasted great.

Meet our suppliers

After hearing the horror stories coming out of Bangladesh about factories collapsing and the conditions the workers work in, I thought that it would be reassuring to meet some of the people who supply us with our clothes and handicrafts here in Thailand.
Many of our suppliers we have worked with for many years and they have become our friends. Over the next few weeks as we put in our orders for next season you'll get a chance to meet them.

Here Steve is with Samon and Wichok, and Sook. We buy our singing frogs and a few other handicrafts from Samon and Wichok. Sook lives with us in our house here in Thailand and we look on her as the daughter we never had. All our projects and crazy ideas involve Sook.

The tie-dye we do with Uraipan. We've worked with her and her husband for many years. Recently her daughter has joined the team. Uraipan is like a humming bird. At full speed all the time.Sometimes it is hard to keep up with her.

 

We just returned from a trip into the mountains where we ended up buying green coffee beans in a Karen hill tribe village. Had a great time there watching them roast coffee , and sampling the finished product. More on that when I get the photos downloaded.