Beans of
PERFECTION Saffron Coffee brings the cult of coffee to Luang Prabang By Sally Pryor
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op-notch riverside cafes have much to recommend them, but when it comes to Luang Prabang’s Saffron Coffee, everything starts with the coffee.
cabinet laden with sweet treats and menu featuring gingerbread pancakes and iced Cascara-ginger tea (sipped through environmentally-responsible bamboo straws).
From seedling to plant, from cherry to bean, from roaster to packaging, and from there to an espresso machine, French press, or Aeropress, it’s the coffee itself that’s the whole point.
Café cool – not to mention caffeinated excellence - has finally made it to Luang Prabang, and it has taken a surprisingly long time, given the town has been on worldwide lists of top travel destinations since the early 2000s.
There is nothing quite like taking that first sip of a coffee that you know has been lovingly crafted, both by nature and by countless expert hands, before it has made its way into your cup. And when it comes to the physical, the unspoiled view of the Mekong just over the street – sun-lit or rain-drenched, depending on the season – wending its way lazily along a riverbank that makes up the streetside of downtown Luang Prabang, doesn’t hurt. And nor does the comfy interior, with window-bench seating, WiFi, large and small tables, a counter 44
In fact, says director Todd Moore, Saffron Coffee (the company), selling produce from local villages around northern Laos, has existed for the past 10 years, with a café shopfront (Saffron’s Espresso, Brew Bar, and Roastery) as a conduit for promoting selling coffee. But while the current model of buying coffee from local farmers at higher-than-average prices and supporting them through the cultivation and harvest process has long been part of the company’s ethos,
the notion of a top-notch café fronting the business has not. When Moore moved from the United States to Luang Prabang with his family in 2010, the company was being run by its founder, another American, David Dale. The café itself, while occupying a prime spot on the Mekong bank in the centre of town, was not a priority for the business of selling coffee. Dale left Laos in 2016, leaving Moore in charge, alongside his new staff, Australian Derek Smith, who has also shipped his young family to this corner of the world to devote their lives to coffee. Together, the two have transformed the Saffron shopfront – which happened to serve coffee – into a bona fide destination. “It’s the same coffee company, but we just re-envisioned, repurposed, and refocused the cafe,” Smith says.
