Koffie's coffee workshop is a complete day, we start between 8 and 9 a.m. with a tasty breakfast and coffee, at 9 a.m. we start the tour to our organic coffee plantation and to a organic coffee farm, everything is explained from a Laos and an European perspective.
After the lunch and the wok roasting tutorial you are ready to return with your own wok roasted high quality coffee around 4 p.m. (4.30 last bus to Sekong/Attapeu, 5.30 last bus to Pakse/Vientiane)
Since Paksong is a very quiet, rural Lao place, as a visitor you will appreciate a friendly European face who can help you enjoy your stay with a unique concept called Koffie's Coffee Workshop.
Paksong Koffie's Coffee workshop Paksong.
Comprehensive Tour
We offer a comprehensive tour of the coffee growing fields, after a good breakfast with coffee we visit a coffee plantation and a coffee farm, we finish the morning at the processing areas. After the lunch we teach you how to wok roast coffee and you will bring home your wok roasted coffee, all for 200.000 kip. (breakfast, lunch, local transportation and your wok roasted coffee included).
Coffee Plantations
We'll start you out in the morning, 9 a.m. , take you to our organic coffee plantation and our organic coffee farm where you'll see the beautiful bright green broad-leaved arabica in the rich volcanic red earth soil and get a real flavor of the coffee growing atmosphere AND the real flavor of real coffee!
Picking by hand
You'll also get a look at the machines involved in the husking process that take off the outer shell. We also show you the drying processes that take place following the picking by hand, which provides Bolaven villagers with an important and relatively high paying source of income for their lives during the season.
Wok roasted coffee
After the lunch we'll teach you how to roast small amounts green arabica beans yourself and brew the coffee fresh from the field into a steaming cup of very flavorful, very aromatic java. You can drink coffee as much as you want.
Coffee Pickers Meeting Point
A relaxed, helpful guided tour, finishing about 3 or 4 p.m. The night before the workshop we can arrange for a limited of you a homestay in our original coffee picker's house called 'Ban Won' owned by real Bolaven Coffee farmers.
There are also Guest houses in Paksong
New
Helen from England : "I had a great day, we set off to the plantation in the back of a truck, as the workers would do, ate breakfast there, saw the different types of plantations and coffee plants, went back for an amazing lunch and learnt how to roast our own coffee. I can't wait to show off to my mates when I get home! I can roast my own coffee, how cool is that!?!"
Center of Paksong
Won and Koffie's place is located just 400 meters from the center of Paksong (see map). If you'd like to let us know when you are coming, just send a message via the contact page, or use skype.
Small Coffee Plantations.
The Dutchman Koffie was traveling in Asia, visited Tibet and lived in Thailand a couple of years and bought some coffee in Paksong to roast and ship to people around the world. The nickname Koffie was given at age 2 when he started drinking the leftover coffee from his mother's coffee cup.
It was in Paksong on a coffee buying trip that Koffie fell in love with the local coffee trader, daughter of a big family with several small coffee farms.
When Koffie visited Paksong as a traveller he recognized the need for a coffee workshop in the coffee capital of Laos and had an excellent excuse to develop one at the moment he was married and became a resident of Laos.
This is truly a coffee center of the world tour given by a coffee lover named Koffie.
Koffie speaks fluent English, German, Dutch and reasonable Polish. He's working on his Lao every day.
Booking or Reservation.
Please make your booking or reservation by telephone or by email so that we know you are comming, see the contact page.
Travel info.
In short: Use any transportation from Pakse to Paksong, its in Paksong on the mainroad just 400 meter after the junction with the market.
From Pakse to Paksong
Leave Pakse at 7.00 a.m. by motorcycle or with a local bus from the big market in Pakse (7.30), you will be in Paksong between 8 and 9.00 a.m. early enough to have your first cup of good coffee and do the tour or the trekking.
- before 11.00 a.m. Small local buses are leaving from the big market (km 2) to Paksong.
- before 4 p.m. there are different 'VIP' buses to Attapeu which will stop at Paksong.
- rent a motorbike in one of the hotels in Pakse, its a very nice road to Paksong (50 kms) with a lot of sceneries and its easy to navigate.
- use one of the tourists tuk-tuks, they will bring you to Paksong and stay with you the rest of the day.
Look for the blont sign: "COFFEE" just 400 meters out of the center from Paksong on your loop to Tat Lo / Sekong / Attapeu
From Paksong back to Pakse
- The last bus to Pakse leaves between 5 and 6 p.m. Its the VIP bus in the direction of Vientiane and stops in front of the coffee workshop.
From Paksong to Sekong or Attapeu
- The last bus to Sekong / Attapeu leaves around 4 p.m.and stops also in front of the coffee workshop.
From Tat Lo (Tad Lo) or Saravan
- Take the bus to Pakse, drive to km 21 and take the bus to Paksong or Attapeu. Ask the driver to stop 400 meters out of the center in the direction of Attapeu.
- With the motorcycle you go to Ban Beng, from there on the dirt road with minorities to Ta Theng and follow the road to Pakse, at km 50 is Paksong, the coffee workshop is just 400 meters before the "center" on your left hand.
From Vientiane to Paksong
- Take the VIP sleepbus from 8.30 p.m. to Pakse, you will arrive in Pakse at 6 am. take the morning local bus at the big market to Paksong or go to Pakse and take the 4 o'clock bus at KM 8 in the direction of Attapeu.
or
Take the VIP King of the Road bus from 8.30 p.m. to Paksong/Attapeu. This bus stops the next morning in front of the coffee workshop in Paksong. (white sign with "Daily Fresh Roasted Coffee" on it, 400 meters out of the center from Paksong in the direction of Attapeu)
From Ubon Ratchatani (Thailand) to Paksong
- Take the international VIP bus to Pakse (3 hours), take at "km 8" in Pakse at 3.15 the VIP bus in the direction of Attapeu, 1 hour later the bus stops in front of the coffee workshop in Paksong.
last update
Feb 28 2010
Short travel info:
Drive to Paksong, on the main road, at your right hand side you see a sign "COFFEE"
