Seasons greetings

We are staying warm in Chiang Mai ,Thailand as we hear of the blizzards back home.

 

 

Hope you have a great Christmas season. Stay warm.

 

New for Christmas

We have sent off some of the new goodies that we bought in Nepal to our stores. Just in time for that last minute shopping.
We found some really great silver and costume jewellery. The earrings and rings are particularly beautiful.

 

There are infinity scarves and magic hats in an assortment of beautiful colours and

 

 

Colourful shawls to wrap yourself in.

 

 

These stylish felt hats will keep your head warm, and the felt coin purses are just too cute.

 

The hand warmers are good for keeping the hands warm while the fingers are free to do their thing.

 

For the young or the young at heart there is a selection of animal hats.

 

And matching animal mitts.

 

Don't worry if you are running a little behind in the Christmas shopping. These are just in and there is sure to be something for that last minute gift. 

 

 

 

Our Coffee Story

Meet Sook. She has lived with us and been involved in our business in Thailand for about 5 years now. We refer to her as our daughter.

Sook is from a Karen Hilltribe village called Ban Khun Pae to the west of Chiang Mai.

Her village has become involved in the coffee growing business over the last few years in an effort to generate a cash crop.

Sook along with her family have started growing coffee on their land.

Here is Sook's mum.

 

 

And here is her dad

 

 

The problem for them is they don't have the cash to buy the machinery to process the coffee. That is where we have come in to the picture. We have acquired some of the machinery needed to process the coffee.

We are working with Sook's dad to harvest the coffee he grows and to purchase the freshly harvested coffee fruit from the other villagers, and to take it through to the final roasted bean that we then can market.

 

Here are some views of the land and Sook's village. The coffee is grown organically. Mainly by default as they can't afford to buy artificial fertiliser and instead use the cow manure that is freely available from their farms.
The coffee is grown on the hillsides surrounded by other trees such as avocados and the remains of an old plum orchard.

 

The village is quite high up and during the rainy season a 4 wheel drive vehicle is needed to get up there.

Harvesting of the coffee started a couple of weeks ago and will last for the next 2 months.

The coffee is harvested in the cherry. It is a round red fruit about the size of a cherry that contains 2 beans inside.

 

 

The fruit is put through a pulping machine that removes the flesh. The beans are then soaked in water for a day to remove the excess pulp and put in the sun to dry.

 

 

Once the beans are dry they can be stored.

 

 

The next process is to removed the hard skin that still surrounds the bean.

 

 

Then the really exciting process of roasting the coffee happens. We have had lots of fun learning to roast coffee and tasting it all.

 

 

This final roasted coffee we are selling in our stores in Canada and to coffee shops in Thailand.

 

 

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Know that for every cup you drink you are helping Sook, her family and the rest of her village to become more self sustainable.

 



Enjoy.

 

For updates on our coffee harvest check out The Travelling Gardener blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return from Nepal

We are back in Thailand after an amazing trip to Nepal. It has taken me a while to download the photos and get organised.
As well as buying some great stuff for the stores we managed to do a little exploring as well.
We took a few days to go up to Nargakot on a ridge that over looks the Himalayan range. If you are up early enough you can watch the sun rise over Everest. The next day we walked back down to Kathmandu exploring the country side along the way.

 

We also have our favourite temples to visit. This is a pic of  the Bodanath temple, a Tibetan temple on the outskirts of Kathmandu.

 

Battling the busy streets of Thamil where we do our buying is always a challenge.

But also part of the charm.

 

Here is a guy with a big load of fabric on his way to market.

 

 

The bead vendors were colourful and eye catching.

 

Their little shops grouped together. Each one seemingly more eye catching than the last.

 

Finally we decided on one and started to make our purchases.

 

 

This supplier of some of the great bags we found had a little help from his daughter when she got home from school.

 

 

The night we bought the incense from this vendor, the streets were so crowded we could hardly move. But he had a great selection so it was worth the battle.

 

So many great things to buy. We did our best.

 

 

We have gathered up all we bought and it is being packed , ready to be sent to Canada. We bought some great stuff, and are looking forward to getting it into the stores for you to see.