Son La in Vietnam is a region with an impressive mountain landscape, surrounded by valleys and plateaus. The cool climate, high humidity and the temperature difference of 10-15°C between day and night create ideal conditions for various types of fruit and are particularly excellent for the Arabica coffee plant.
Son La Arabica coffee is grown on the slopes of gentle hills at altitudes of 900 to 1,200 meters. There are currently 20,000 hectares of coffee plantations in Sơn La province, producing 350,000 tons of coffee annually. 
Meet our Farmer, Tung! Tung and his father are the founders of a cooperative that produces specialty Arabica coffee in the Son La mountainous region of northwest Vietnam.
Initially, the cooperative consisted of just 11 farmers with a cultivation area of 50 hectares. Before the cooperative was founded and without a focus on the production of high-quality coffee, the farmers often ran into difficulties with price fluctuations and crop failures because production, quality and distribution were not optimized. After the cooperative was founded, a close collaboration between the parties was developed, which today ensures the production of the highest quality coffee beans. The cooperative also regularly invites coffee experts from the USA and Germany to teach the farmers new cultivation and harvesting methods and to constantly improve the quality of the coffee beans. 
As the global demand for quality and organic products is constantly increasing, the cooperative has decided to produce high-quality coffee according to organic guidelines. In addition, they want to increasingly use scientifically and technically valuable methods to further improve the quality of the coffee beans. The coffee is cared for with organic fertilizers and the harvesting and processing processes are strictly adhered to in order to preserve the natural sugar content and the quality of the beans. A drier method of peeling is also used instead of the traditional wet processing in order to reduce the environmental impact caused by high water consumption.
Tung reports that organic coffee cultivation is more difficult and labor-intensive than conventional cultivation. It requires a lot of effort and investment to grow the beans to this quality. But because this approach is appreciated by consumers on international markets, it is possible to achieve higher prices and thus offer prospects to the farmers. With tireless effort, Tung and his father have expanded the cooperative's cultivation area from 50 to 150 hectares in order to achieve an annual production of 50-60 tons of high-quality coffee. Quality rather than quantity is the motto of the specialty coffee produced, which is already sold to many customers in the USA and Japan.
With the aim of conquering the demanding European market, Tùng has agreed to work with Coweli. Finally, his dream has come true: the first delivery of specialty coffee from the northwestern mountain region of Vietnam was delivered directly to Coweli's roastery in Germany a week ago.
The success story of the switch to specialty coffee has enabled Tung's cooperative and the farmers involved to improve their economic situation and free them from the dependence and price dictatorship of middlemen. This is a big step towards changing the image and positioning of Vietnamese coffee on the international market. You can enjoy the taste of 100% Arabica specialty coffee from the mountains of the northwestern region of Son La in Vietnam in our product "Elegante" .
