From a guesthouse
in Pakse to your
morning cup.
Laven started with a simple observation — and a one-way ticket to southern Laos.
The Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos is extraordinary. Ancient volcanic activity left behind soils dense with minerals — soils that produce Arabica coffee with a brightness and complexity that rivals anything from East Africa or Latin America. The plateau sits at 1,000–1,350 metres above sea level. The climate is cool, the rainfall abundant, the conditions close to perfect.
And yet almost nobody in the West has tasted it.
Laven exists to change that. We set up in Pakse — directly beside the Coffee Promotion Company and the Lao Coffee Association — and started doing the only thing that matters: visiting farms, building relationships, cupping lots at origin, and selecting the best of what the plateau produces each season.
Named for the people
of the plateau.
The Laven are one of the indigenous peoples of the Bolaven Plateau — the plateau itself takes its name from theirs. They have farmed this land for generations, long before coffee arrived with the French in the 1920s. When we chose the name Laven, we were choosing to acknowledge that history honestly.
Every bag of Laven coffee is a direct connection to this community, this soil, and this story. We pay fair prices to the smallholder families who grow our coffee. We tell their story. We don't pretend the coffee appears from nowhere.
This is coffee with a postcode. Every bag is traceable to a specific farm on the plateau, a specific harvest, a specific family's work. That transparency isn't a marketing claim — it's the entire reason Laven exists.
Two beans, two stories.
Our Washed and Natural process coffees aren't just processed differently — they're grown from different varietals entirely. Understanding the difference is part of understanding what makes this plateau special.
Typica is one of the oldest and most revered coffee varietals in the world — the genetic ancestor of most Arabica grown today. It's slower-growing and lower-yielding than newer varietals, which is exactly why it's prized: less fruit per tree means more concentrated flavour in the cup. It's what gives our Washed lot its elegant sweetness, balanced acidity, and clean citrus finish. Farmers grow less of it because it takes more from the land — that scarcity is part of what makes it the premium choice.
Catimor is a hardier, higher-yielding varietal bred to withstand disease and thrive at scale — which makes it more affordable to grow and buy. That doesn't mean lesser quality; it means a different character. Paired with natural processing, where the whole cherry dries around the bean, Catimor develops a fuller body and bolder, fruit-forward sweetness — dark berry, brown sugar, syrup. It's a different expression of the same plateau, not a step down from it.
Same farms, same soil, same care at origin. The difference in price simply reflects the difference in what it costs to grow each bean — not a difference in how much attention we've put into your bag.