A Coffee Tree Grows in Hong Kong

Hong Kong-grown coffee has been in the works for years, and in 2019 a rural sustainability project launched by the Policy for Sustainability Lab at the University of Hong Kong finally saw the fruits of its labour. A total of 99 trees, encompassing four varieties, were planted; ten of them fruited, leading to a total of about 2kg of coffee cherries. That precious harvest, grown on the Lai Chi Wo Farm for Sustainable Agriculture in the New Territories, was honey-processed and roasted by local microroastery Colour Brown. Finally, in January 2021, about 100 single-use drip packs of Hong Kong’s first homegrown coffee were made available for sale.

Food writer and sustainability advocate Janice Leung Hayes was one of the few who managed to taste the resulting coffee, describing it as caramel and dried brown dates on the nose, and caramel chocolate on the palate.

“I didn’t know what to expect, as Hong Kong lacks the altitude of the world’s best growing regions, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a cup that was well balanced and very enjoyable,” she tells us. “It’s exciting to know that ‘farm to cup’ is possible in Hong Kong. I’m not sure that there’ll ever be enough volume for Hong Kong-grown coffee to be found in cafés across Hong Kong all the time, but I hope the success of Lai Chi Wo’s coffee will encourage more farms to try growing it, and more local coffee professionals to get involved in the farming process.”

To find out more about the project, follow @hkvillagefest on Instagram