10 years ago, in Langbiang…
Ten years ago, they had the chance to meet each other at a gong performance in a stilt house in Lang Biang. There, the girl Rolan stood out with her graceful dances in a K'ho costume that she designed and embroidered herself. Josh, like many other tourists who accidentally fell into the wild world of the K'ho, was "fascinated" by Rolan's eyes. His sincere feelings in the subsequent meetings won the girl over.
Josh and Rolan
The day Rolan brought Josh home to meet his family, Rolan took Josh straight to the coffee plantation where Rolan's family and relatives were picking coffee. Given a basket, Josh met Rolan's relatives and had to complete the task of picking a basket full of coffee. After scoring points in carrying a 50-80 kg bag of coffee just picked from the plantation across the steep hill, Josh was approved by Rolan's family. The following meetings helped Josh understand the unique culture of the K'ho people, and he became more connected with the people in the K'ho community in Rolan's village.
That coffee crop, for the first time Josh tasted the original K'ho Arabica coffee beans when he roasted them himself on a rudimentary pan."Great!"The thought that came to mind along with the delicious taste of the coffee took Josh completely by surprise.
Ripe, plump coffee berries
Love bears fruit, K'ho Coffee was born
Originally an agricultural engineer from Michigan (USA), Josh began discussing with Rolan how to make coffee more efficiently with Rolan's family and the K'ho people, seeing how much effort Rolan's family and the K'ho people put into their coffee plants but only reaped little profit when harvesting.
Instead of picking fresh fruit once or twice a year like every year to sell raw products to traders at low prices, Josh proposed to Rolan's family and the villagers a closed-loop approach: From converting the conventional coffee growing method to organic farming to protect health, to selective picking (picking ripe fruits, picking in many batches during the season), then to being meticulous in each step such as selecting beans, drying properly, roasting according to the correct process to produce batches of K'ho coffee of high quality, unique, different, and more valuable.
All processing steps are done by hand by the local K'ho people. The meticulousness in each stage has transformed the Arabica coffee beans grown naturally on the Lang Biang hills into a drink with a very unique flavor. And from there, the K'ho Coffee brand was born.
With coffee as a “catalyst”, Josh and Rolan’s love story soon came to fruition under the legendary Lang Biang mountain. A wedding followed, and children were born, continuing the journey of bringing K’ho Coffee to the world.
The journey to bring K'ho Coffee to the world
In 2015, during a trip across Vietnam with the theme “Made in Vietnam” to search for unique Vietnamese products, I met Josh and Rolan - and have been together ever since, along with other K'ho people on the journey to bring coffee beans grown around Lang Biang to the world.
During the time Josh and Rolan went to Tokyo (Japan) to attend the Specialty Coffee Fair, the Japanese and coffee lovers there were very excited when we shared stories about the K'ho people growing coffee, about the land, about the trees, about the K'ho culture, or the history of Da Lat and Vietnam. When the guests were drinking a cup of coffee, they closed their eyes and felt the fragrant aroma, or opened their eyes and looked into our eyes, they could see the passion in what we were telling...
Before leaving the Fair, we made an appointment with those new friends to come to Vietnam soon, to Lang Biang to go to the coffee plantations with the K'ho people, to get acquainted with the culture of the indigenous people.
Where coffee lovers come to
That year, during the coffee fruit ripening season, the first visitors flew to Da Lat, walked along the dirt road behind Lang Biang Mountain to pick the ripe, shiny coffee berries; carried bags of coffee across the hills like Josh had “conquered” Rolan’s family before. They and their K’ho brothers processed the coffee, watched the wild peach blossoms bloom, listened to the birds sing, watched the sunset on the way back, and then participated in the processing steps at the K’ho village right at the foot of Lang Biang Mountain.
Guests can stay at a homestay in the village, watch K'ho women weave, experience the culture and life of the villagers, or make their own coffee and enjoy it right at Josh and Rolan's lovely family coffee shop. There, they will meet Josh and Rolan's two lovely angels, and of course, hear the story of the pioneer couple who brought K'ho coffee to the world, while watching the clouds drifting over Lang Biang peak before their eyes.
Having learned many interesting things about K'ho coffee, everyone left the village with a fragrant aroma, as fragrant as the taste of the cups of coffee they had so passionately enjoyed. The gifts they brought back were brocades imbued with K'ho culture, in which the locals had delicately conveyed many messages in each pattern: the sun, the leaves, the ants, the eyes of an eagle..., along with bags of K'ho Arabica coffee and endless stories about the land of simple people.
And since then, every coffee harvest season, K'ho Coffee farm has welcomed countless new visitors, who come here because of their love for coffee, culture and people of Da Lat. The journey of K'ho Coffee to the world continues to extend its flavor...
Rolan's mother with her self-woven brocades
Traditional motifs of the K'ho people
Josh, on his family's coffee farm
On the way back from the coffee plantation
More information
- Time: The experience of "The story of the K'ho people making coffee" takes place for 3 days and 2 nights in November, December and January every year - the time when the K'ho people harvest coffee.
- Location: Da Lat, Lang Biang
- Tour price: 3,969,000 VND/person
- Contact the tour via phone number: (+84) 985 555 827
