Shwe Taung Thu farmers group, which translates to ‘Golden Farmer’, is a farmer-owned venture, made up of over 3000 Danu and Pa-O smallholder farmers from 17 villages across the Ywangan area of Southern Shan State, Myanmar. Women make up 60% of the total workforce.

Shwe Taung Thu empowers small-scale farmers, giving them control over coffee production, pricing, and community contributions. This frees them from middleman exploitation and boosts their profits. The focus is exclusively on producing dry naturals – the climate and terroir is particularly suited to this process, with very dry heat during the harvest season providing excellent conditions for drying.

Coffees produced by Shwe Taung Thu are named after the villages where the coffee is grown and processed. Each community has its own working group which is responsible for managing the cultivation and processing of the coffee within each village. In return, the operational team at Shwe Taung Thu offers valuable support in various forms, including technical guidance, market access, and financial assistance to bring about quality control and fairer trade conditions for its coffees.

This coffee is grown and processed by 180 households from A Lel Chaung village. It is an exceptionally clean and bright natural processed coffee, which really reflects the meticulous attention to detail – three groups of seven villagers work on rotation to hand sort the cherry.