Visiting Coffee Farms in Taiwan

 The island of Taiwan is spread, north to south, for some 300km along a mountainous spine. That mountain range has more than 60 peaks that exceed 3,000m elevation. Such a dense collection of heights offers an even more complex arrangement of valleys, glens and rivers chasms that have proved perfect locations for coffee cultivation. 

Taiwan has more than 450 coffee farms scattered throughout the length of this mountainous spine. They range in size from large scale industrial volume estates in the lower elevations that would generally offer an annual crop of 100+ tonnes all the way to family run farms growing a diversity of products in the higher climbs where crop yield will likely fall between 5-10 tonnes annually. Access to these numerically larger farms is consequently much more difficult. 

The sophistication of the farm infrastructure ties directly to the scale of these operations. Larger farms are likely to have websites, perhaps coffee tasting rooms, some retail operations all of which can encourage customer outreach and retail focus. Some at this larger end of the market are likely to also have some language skills to engage customers outside Taiwan. But these are a distinct minority. 

Dou.coffee have chosen to focus our efforts at the opposite scale of the market. We believe there are wonderful coffees being grown throughout Taiwan on family run farms which offer single-estate quality insights into the range of flavours possible across the islands growing regions. Our added value is to provide these smaller operations a channel to the outside market, providing world class roasting, packaging and marketing. By enhancing the infrastructure these farms themselves afford, we hope to allow a far larger exposure to discerning coffee drinkers across the world. 

We try to provide as much information on our supplier farms as possible. And we understand that many of our customers would like to understand more about these farms and the farmers so dedicated to this quality product. But a cautionary word - with few exceptions, our suppliers have no capacity to meet guests. When we visit, the isolation of farms means we frequently find ourselves able to visit only one farmer each day, hosted at the family dining table to try their latest crop, hand picked most recently. Communication will be invariably in Mandarin or Hokkien, and very much done in the traditional style common to farmers throughout the island. Visitors are treated with great respect, but will remain strangers until several visits subsequently. 

We are happy to provide a list of coffee growers and roasters who would be better equipped to handle customer visit and tastings. These suggestions would include retail opportunities for visitors and at least some capability to communicate with foreign guests.