Green Land Coffee Plantation was founded by U Sai Wan Maing in 1999 after selling his rubber plantation. It’s located in Pyin Oo Lwin, formerly Maymyo, a scenic hill town known for its botanical gardens and examples of colonial architecture. Rising from the central basin, it is contained within the Shan plateau at 1150 masl in the east of Myanmar and forms part of the Indo-Malayan mountain system. The orange-red flowers of the erythrina tree dot the landscape and provide nitrogen fixing for the soils, important for growing coffee.
Green Land is one of Myanmar’s largest coffee farms, starting out as 30 acres with rapid expansion in the first three years to becoming over 580,000 coffee trees grown on 450 acres. The main variety grown is locally known as Costa Rica, though in reality is a Catimor from Costa Rica. SL34 forms around 10% of the farm but U Sai Wan is also conducting experiments with Yellow Bourbon, Caturra and Catuai too. Shade is too heavy to produce great quality in some areas of the farm, and rust has already started in the older trees, so these areas are forming the focus for the immediate future. On average, 1 acre produces about 300kg of green coffee. However, one of the shade trees, macadamia, also produces a valuable crop. It is more valuable than coffee
Around 15 workers are employed full time on the farm, rising to 100 when the harvest is ongoing. For an average day though, around 50 workers are present on the farm. There are basic wet and dry milling facilities if needed, but exporter Mandalay Coffee Group has better more specific equipment so the preference is to mill with them.