Liz Shen (Thai name Cha­mai­porn Cha­roen­­tang­som­but) hails from the village of Pha Tang in northern Thailand’s ­Chiang Rai Province.

Twenty-seven-year-old Shen is fond of wearing army-green shirts and eyeball finger rings that she believes bring her good luck. Petite with shoulder­-length hair, she speaks Chinese fluently. While studying in Taiwan, she worked part-time at the Lao Chai Café House near her university. She learned the basics of serving coffee, from the beans to brewing techniques. After returning to Thailand, she opened 93Army Coffee, which serves coffee made from beans grown in her hometown, allowing her to keep alive the story of the lost Chinese army through the aroma of coffee.

Visitors to 93Army Coffee, located near Bangkok University, are drawn in by the aroma of brewing coffee. A martial atmosphere permeates the industrial-style space.

Hometown coffee and a community’s evolving story

Visitors to 93Army Coffee, located near Bangkok University, are drawn in by the aroma of brewing coffee. A martial atmosphere permeates the industrial-style space. It is decorated with military memorabilia, making visitors feel like they have entered an exhibit on the history of the abandoned Nationalist soldiers.

The name often piques the curiosity of foreign visitors, who pipe up and ask, “93Army? What?!”

The logo for 93Army Coffee is an image of Shen Jia’en, a commander of the 93rd Division of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China. In 1949, at the end of the Chinese Civil War, remnants of the NRA made an arduous journey through the mountains in China’s Yunnan Province and crossed into Thailand and Burma, after which they became known as the “lost army.” Up to 1970 the 93rd Division helped Thai forces suppress a communist insurgency and protect northern Thailand. In return the Nationalist soldiers were granted Thai citizenship and were able to peacefully settle in the north. After the conflict, they put down their arms and settled down to farm in the area.

Northern Thailand has long been known as part of the Golden Triangle, once used to cultivate poppies for opium production. However, the opium trade harmed Thailand’s image and caused environmental degradation in the area. In 1969 Thailand’s late king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, visited northern Thailand and initiated the Royal Project Foundation.

The Royal Project founded by King Bhumibol, the ROC’s Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen (now the Veterans Affairs Council), and agricultural assistance teams from the International Cooperation and Development Fund have since been working together to improve farming methods in northern Thailand and to replace opium poppies with other high-value cash crops.

After completing studies in Taiwan, Liz Shen’s father, Shen Qingfu, returned to northern Thailand and began to cultivate cash crops. In 2009 he established the 93Army Coffee Plantation, beginning what would become a lasting involvement in the coffee business.

At the time Shen Qingfu was familiar only with coffee cultivation techniques. He had never had a cup of coffee, which was a completely foreign thing to him. It was not an uncommon phenomenon for the planters to be unable to afford a cup of coffee.

Her father’s encouragement convinced Liz Shen to study in Taiwan. She wanted to put her academic studies to good use when she returned home and chose to focus on business management. She eagerly took up part-time work at Lao Chai Café House near the National Taipei University branch campus in Sanxia, and learned about coffee firsthand. She planned to open a coffee shop of her own in her hometown after graduation. 

During the Chinese Civil War some of the Nationalist forces retreated over the borders of Thailand and Burma and became a forgotten army. Pictured here are Commander Shen Jia’en (middle), Deputy Chief of Staff Qu Shucheng (left), and Political Warfare Director Lu Dazhan (right).(courtesy of Liz Shen)

An entrepreneur’s precious brew

While many students studying abroad end up staying in the host country and seeking jobs after graduation, Shen was intent on returning home to Thailand and starting a career that would put her studies to practical use. She worked hard to develop a business around the local coffee crop. 

Pha Tang’s coffee is cultivated in highlands between 1,200 and 1,600 meters above sea level. Production is limited by the paucity of arable land, and competition with large-scale producers is not possible.

Moreover, the retail price of roasted coffee beans is many times the wholesale cost of the raw beans. The coffee sold in the shop, which costs 100 baht and up per serving, is far too pricey for the farmers who grow it.

It is one of the high-quality products that have resulted from support by the Royal Project. They are popular among Thai customers and foreign tourists who often buy them as gifts.

Shen is well aware that the coffee grown in northern Thailand is widely known only in Thailand and that among the coffee-growing regions of Southeast Asia, coffee produced in Indonesia and Vietnam is more famous. During our interview this seems to pain her, yet it only increases her determination to promote northern Thai coffee and ensure that the world learns that good coffee is also to be found in the plantations of northern Thailand.

“Good coffee can be bad coffee, but bad coffee is still bad coffee,” she says.

Each step in the process of making a rich cup of coffee, from planting to pouring, takes specialized professional skills. Cultivating coffee requires specialist knowledge through each step from harvesting to ­selling. The skillful application of professional knowledge can increase the value of the coffee. These were the skills she had learned in Taiwan—business management, marketing, how to process coffee beans and how to assess their quality. Each step must be given its proper attention to produce good coffee.

Such was her thinking when she started her business.

But looking back at how she opened her shop in her twenties without much of a plan, she thinks that her impulsiveness was really risky. She admits that the inexperienced entrepreneur that she was back then had thoughts about giving up on the business. 

“Being a coffee drinker doesn’t mean you’ll be successful at opening a coffee shop, and studying management doesn’t mean you’ll know how to run it,” she says.

She has persevered through all her hardships, learning through experience. Since the shop opened in October 2014, 93Army Coffee’s customers have been able to drink a brew made from pure Arabica coffee beans and nibble on Taiwanese-style guabao sandwiches.    

Interested in all things coffee, she also earned her barista certification in the United States and is often invited to serve as a judge or consultant for coffee competitions. She is both an entrepreneur and an educator and is frequently sought out by visitors from Thailand and abroad who want to study her specialized knowledge or learn how to become baristas. 

A martial atmosphere permeates 93Army Coffee, and army green is also featured in the food and beverages. (courtesy of Liz Shen)

Embracing sustainability and fair trade

Shen has never forgotten that her motivation for starting her business was to help raise the incomes of farmers by improving the quality of their coffee beans.

At harvest time, pickers are often in short supply. The ripe red beans must be painstakingly plucked one by one from the clusters, leaving semi-ripe and unripe beans for harvesting at a later date. It is very tempting for farmers to try to reduce their wage costs by harvesting all the beans at the same time.

But if the maturity of the harvested beans is not consistent, roasting and quality will be affected. Shen therefore uses her considerable understanding of coffee to advise farmers on harvesting. She also leads people involved in the coffee trade to experience coffee farming themselves, helping them to understand that a good cup of coffee earns its name only through an arduous process.     

To this end Shen, a member of the Specialty Coffee Association of Thailand, regularly accompanies other association ­members and volunteers on visits to assist the coffee farmers in the highlands of northern Thailand. 

They pitch simple tents in the countryside and spend their days at the coffee plantations distributing and planting seedlings.

Wearing rubber boots, Shen squats down and with a trowel in one hand digs a hole for the seedling that she holds in the other. Each seedling that she plants with her own hands represents hope for the future, and no matter what else she does in life, she likes to describe herself as a simple farmer.

Each night, the enthusiastic coffee lovers sip coffee together and talk about coffee late into the night. Shen says that mountain-brewed coffee is especially delicious.

Shen has turned the coffee from the northern Thai plantations into a boutique product. Coffee beans sold under the 93Army brand reflect her embrace of superior quality and sustainable growing methods, and each step of production is transparent. She also pays fair prices to the farmers, believing that as their quality of life improves they will also more meticulously care for the coffee plants, so that superior-quality coffee is produced for the enjoyment of consumers. This results in positive feedback and further encourages the farmers.

Shen has developed 93Army Coffee one step at a time, from implementing sustainable development and fair trade practices to building a business based on local coffee beans and on understanding and accessing the highest-quality resources, in the hope that each cup of coffee will win the approval of coffee drinkers.    

Shen also travels regularly between Thailand and Taiwan, where she attends coffee exhibitions and recently held a coffee tasting event at which she launched the sale of 93Army Coffee in Taiwan. She also hopes to open a branch of her coffee shop in Taiwan. While the company helps keep alive the story of the stranded Nationalist soldiers, it also represents the increased sharing between Taiwan and Thailand of agricultural techniques, including environmentally sustainable methods and fair trade practices.

Liz Shen brought 93Army coffee beans to Taiwan for a coffee tasting event. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

Liz Shen and representatives of the Specialty Coffee Association of Thailand regularly visit northern Thailand to help with cultivation techniques and planting. (courtesy of Liz Shen)

The ripe red beans must be painstakingly plucked one by one from the clusters, leaving semi-ripe and unripe beans for harvesting at a later date.

A lot of hard work goes into making a good cup of coffee.

Shen has turned the coffee from the northern Thai plantations into a boutique product. Coffee beans sold under the 93Army brand reflect her embrace of superior quality and sustainable growing methods, and each step of production is transparent.