Doi Chaang

Doi Chaang is a mountain in Chiang Rai, in Thailand’s far north, and one of the country’s two EU-protected coffee origins. On its slopes, at 1,100–1,700 metres, hill farmers grow Caturra, Catimor and Catuaí, pick them by hand from November to March and wash them in spring water. The result, its registration says, is a clean, sweet, floral coffee, naturally low in caffeine.

The short version

• 1,100–1,700 metres, in Mae Suai district, Chiang Rai.
• Caturra, Catimor and Catuaí.
• Clean, sweet-sour, honeyed and floral, by its EU registration.
• Low in caffeine: under 1.1% in the green bean.
• Picked November to March, fully washed.
• An EU PGI since July 2015.

What does Doi Chaang coffee taste like?

Clean and sweet. Kafae Doi Chaang’s EU registration describes a clean, refreshing coffee with a sweet-sour aroma, a honey tone and a floral note, and a cup of medium acidity and body. Its Japanese GI registration adds a sweet aroma and low caffeine, under 1.1% in the green bean, which it puts down to the altitude. Coffee Review scored a Doi Chaang Arabica 92 in 2014: “delicately complex, sweet-toned, balanced”, with almond, cacao nib, sweet lime and honeysuckle-like flowers and a gently crisp acidity.

The mountain

The protected area lies on the slopes of Doi Chaang, in Wawi subdistrict, Mae Suai district, around the villages of Doi Chaang and Ban Mai Pattana. Most of it is steep, with slopes over 35% and narrow strips of flatter land along ridges and valleys; the soils are fine sandy loam or loam, rich in organic matter and well drained, at a pH of about 6–6.5. Many streams rise on the mountain, among them the Huai Krai, which flows all year. Seed must come from a known source, such as Chiang Mai University’s Faculty of Agriculture, or from rust-free plants.

Harvest and processing

The trees flower in February, and the ripe red-to-yellow cherries are hand-picked from November to March. Processing is fully washed: the cherries are floated in spring water to remove unripe and overripe fruit, pulped, fermented in water, washed by hand, soaked for another 20–24 hours and sun-dried on terraces for seven to eight days, raked often and covered at night, until they reach 11% moisture. Green beans are graded AA (over 6.96 mm), A (6.10–6.96 mm) and peaberry, which makes up only about 5% of the crop.

Doi Chaang and Thai coffee

Chiang Rai grew 4,850 tonnes of coffee in 2025, almost all arabica, about a third of Thailand’s crop, by the Office of Agricultural Economics’ figures as reported by the Chiang Rai Times. The province’s own agriculture and cooperatives office gives about 41,264 rai (6,602 ha) of coffee producing 3,185 tonnes a year, without a year, and names Doi Chaang first among its coffee sources, with Akha Ama and Pang Khon. Nationally, the OAE counted 139,998 rai of arabica and 10,682 tonnes of arabica in 2024/25, of a total crop of 15,651 tonnes. The Heinrich Böll Foundation cites Doi Chang as one of the open, treeless former opium-growing landscapes still visible today, and northern growers now face rain that lingers into the harvest.

Doi Chaang and other Thai origins

• Coffee in Thailand: the whole country, its output and its history.
• Doi Tung: the other protected origin in Chiang Rai, shade-grown at 800–1,200 m.
• Coffee in Laos: the neighbour across the Mekong.