Meelor was born in southern of China in Yunnan province. She was migrated to Thailand in the last part of the cultural revolution in China. She was born in the Akha indigenous family and has been working in the farm since her parents’ generation. Most of agriculture varieties she has been cultivated is the vegetables and stone fruits. She was settled at first in Maesalong where the special location of multi-indigenous peoples are living and many families were starting a tea farm to trade with Taiwan and China. Meelor married with Maekor and moved to Maejantai village, Maesuai district. Maejantai is situated on the great location for coffee cultivation. She started her new life with Maekor to cultivate ginger, rice and vegetables. However, the agricultural practices were changed since she was growing the integrated crops. She started to grow stone fruits in 30 years ago and coffee was starting to grow a few years later.
She has 4 kids in the family and everyone is involving in the coffee industry. The first son of her is Lee Ayu Chuepa and he started Akha Ama Coffee in 2010 with his family to established the social enterprise to support community through coffee cultivation. The coffee from Meelor family was very first coffee was nominated as one of the coffee used for World Cup Tasters Championship in 2010, in London and selected by SCAE Speciality Coffee Association of Europe at that time before merging SCAE and SCAA .
Meelor started to collect more and more coffee varieties into her farm from the introduction of Lee and there are many interesting varietal coffees like Geisha, Caturra, Heirloom from Guatemala, IPR 107, SL 28, SL 34, Sunda Geisha ( Indonesia ) and some over varietals.
Special note about Meelor
Meelor won the first outstanding farmer award to cultivate coffee from Thai Royal Project. She was very first farmer Maejantai who started a dry fermentation coffee and finished with wash process. Her daughter Ader is farming and processing specialty coffee and market through Akha Ama as well.
MBN