Partner Story

La Cabra Thailand

The beginning of November 2020 saw the opening of our first location in Thailand. The first coffees brewed in Bangkok signaled the culmination of nearly two years of planning and development.

Photos by: Pornpanit Intapat and Teerawatch Chaowalit

Thailand partners

Our La Cabra Thailand partners are based in Bangkok; headed up by Bew and Bo, both of whom bring tremendous curiosity for specialty coffee to the table. They combine this with a wealth of local business experience, and educations in engineering and law respectively. A few years ago they encountered our coffee for the first time in Thailand and Bo recalls ‘We thought your coffee is delicious, and that flavour is quite rare to find in Thailand’. Soon they were chatting about the possibility of bringing this type of coffee experience to Bangkok, and shortly after reached out to our founder Esben Piper.

Specialty is expanding

This resulted in a visit to Copenhagen and Aarhus at the beginning of 2019 and a thorough introduction to the La Cabra universe, with a behind the scenes look at our coffee bars, bakery and roastery. We followed up with our first trip to Thailand in August that year, where Esben hosted tastings and workshops in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai. ‘Thailand is one of the coffee hubs of southeast Asia. Thai people love to visit cafes and take their time there. It’s more than just visiting a cafe, they want more details about their coffee. So, l would say the specialty coffee in Thailand is expanding and developing. Thai people are open-minded and they always explore new experiences with friends and family. We educate our baristas to talk and describe some more details of our coffees when we serve in order to make the customer eager to know what it is.’ explains Bo.

An honest and focused space

In early 2020 a lease was signed for a vacant space located in the ‘Talad-Noi’ neighborhood of Bangkok. Talad-Noi is known locally as a junction for the many cultures of Bangkok, with a lot of touches of history and a fresh vibe from the new design district nearby. It has a relaxed atmosphere, yet is not far from the bustling Bangkok CBD. We quickly began to assist our Thai partners with developing the design and concept for their coffee bar, not just with our expertise within coffee but also calling on our experience creating focused and modern spaces here in Denmark. Mikkel Selmer, our Head of Coffee and a trained architect, was responsible for assisting and advising the Thai-based architect team leaded by Jirapatr Jirasukprasert. Our Thai partners wanted to create a coffee bar that can serve as an honest and focused space to share coffee experiences. The result is a minimalistic finish, with a raw edge and many beautiful hidden details. The entrance, with its abundance of natural light, is followed by simple and well appointed front seating space before opening into the stylish coffee bar with its now iconic green tiles and subtle Thai influences.

La Cabra Bangkok

Bew, Bo and co have succeeded in opening a coffee bar that allows those who visit to fully explore and enjoy the complex sensory experience present in a cup of coffee. Like us they empower their baristas to seek out and foster the curiosity of customers, while conveying the story behind a coffee from its farm, tasting notes and brewing. They feel a sense of responsibility and pride in being the first to bring a Scandinavian roastery to Bangkok, and with it a truly La Cabra experience.

Our involvement in the Thai coffee scene is also intended to extend further along the coffee chain. We have started exploring local coffee farming in Thailand, engaging with a small network of innovative and quality-minded producers. Our aim is to find bright and exciting seasonal lots we can offer as a mainstay on the coffee bar menu. Additionally local customers have the opportunity to taste exclusively sourced seasonal lots found only at La Cabra Bangkok. The first of these was a vibrant and rich Natural Pacamara from our long time partner Jorge Raul Rivera in El Salvador, released in early December.

WORKING WITH US

Partnerships & Consultation

Our clients generally aim to provide their customers with a modern specialty coffee experience, with a strong emphasis on quality raw material. We help you fulfil this need with our sourcing programme, our roasting style, and rigorous quality control in the roastery. You can read more about La Cabra’s unique style using the ‘Connect’ tab in the menu above.

If you wish, we can help you improve your bar setup and barista skills with our training programme. By sharing our extensive knowledge about coffee sourcing, roasting, water filtration and brewing we aim to help clients gain a deeper appreciation of flavourful coffee and to communicate more meaningfully with their customers.

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