Our Story

Aligning people, land, and coffee.

Aligning People Aligning Dream Aligning Supply Chain

Aligner Coffee began with a simple belief: great coffee is not created by one person alone. It is the result of many things working together — the land, the farmer, the harvest, the processing, the roaster, and finally, the person drinking the cup.

That idea became our name. Aligner is about bringing those elements into alignment.

Founded in Chiang Mai, Thailand — and officially registered as บริษัท อไลเนอร์ คอฟฟี่ จำกัด in March 2025 — Aligner Coffee is a roastery built around 100% Thai coffee. Instead of looking overseas for our identity, we chose to look closer to home: toward the mountains, forests, villages, and people producing coffee here in Thailand.

We run two roasting facilities — one in Chiang Mai and one on Koh Tao. On our own land we practice small-scale sustainable farming: a coffee plot with its own wet-mill/husking setup, mixed fruit trees, and an adjacent sheep and goat farm.

Beyond our own plot, we maintain direct sourcing relationships with grower families across Pa Pae, Ban Chang, Ban Sib Lang, and Mae Jam — visiting the farms, working through processing together, and paying growers directly rather than through traders.

Coffee cherries on the branch, backlit by sunlight

Roasting facilities — Chiang Mai & Koh Tao

Partner farming communities

2025

Business registered, Chiang Mai

100%

Direct-trade green coffee sourcing

Where It Comes From

From the mountains of Northern Thailand.

Our relationship with coffee goes beyond buying green beans. We work directly with producers and coffee-growing communities across Northern Thailand — including Pa Pae in Chiang Mai, Baan Sib Lhang in Chiang Rai, Pai in Mae Hong Son, and other growing areas we continue to explore and develop.

One of the most important places in our story is Pa Pae, Chiang Mai. It was one of the first origins we seriously worked with, and it became a place where we began to understand what long-term relationships in coffee could actually mean. Instead of simply searching for the best coffee each season, we wanted to grow alongside the people producing it.

Over the years, that relationship has evolved from sourcing coffee into something much deeper: sharing ideas, experimenting with processing, improving consistency, studying fermentation and drying, and learning how the character of a place can be preserved while quality continues to improve.

For us, origin is not just a name printed on a bag.
It is a relationship.

Chiang Mai

Pa Pae (ป่าแป๋)

Mae Taeng district — home to our own coffee plot and wet-mill, plus several lots processed by Suphanat Kuntawang / Aligner Coffee.

Chiang Rai

Ban Sib Lang (บ้านสิบหลัง)

An Akha village in Wiang Pa Pao — washed and honey-processed lots from grower Melanee Laechoeku and family.

Chiang Mai

Ban Chang (บ้านช้าง)

Huai Nam Dang, on the road to Doi Sam Muen — one of our direct-trade partner communities.

Lampang

Mae Jam (แม่แจ๋ม)

Source of The Nuts — roasted almond and caramel-forward beans grown at 1,200–1,300 m.a.s.l.

Mae Hong Son

Pai

One of the newer growing areas we're exploring and developing alongside our existing partner communities.

Our Philosophy

Coffee grown within the forest.

Many of the coffees we work with are grown in mountain environments where coffee exists alongside larger trees and surrounding forest. This shade-grown approach matters to us not only for cup quality, but because it reflects the kind of agricultural system we want to support.

Healthy coffee farming should not mean separating coffee from nature. We believe coffee can exist as part of a larger ecosystem — under tree canopies, alongside local vegetation, and within landscapes that continue to support biodiversity and the communities living there.

That is why the ideas behind Aligner Coffee are often expressed through three words — People. Land. Coffee.
None of them should exist separately.

Coffee cherries drying on raised beds under shade netting

How We Process

The process is not the goal. The goal is control.

At our processing station in Mae Taeng, we don't start with a process name. We start with the cherry in front of us: its ripeness, its sugar, the weather that week. Then we design the fermentation to solve that problem.

Aerobic, CO₂, anaerobic — for us these aren't labels. They're tools we use at different stages, for different reasons.

Washed, natural, honey, and anaerobic fermentation are not simply labels for us either. They're tools for understanding how coffee responds to time, oxygen, microorganisms, sugars, drying, and storage — and we're as interested in control as we are in experimentation.

A handful of coffee cherries at different stages of ripeness, from yellow to deep red

Cherries sorted by ripeness into sample tubes

Sorting cherries by ripeness before they ever reach the tank.

Sampling fermentation liquid into test tubes for tracking

Drawing a sample from a fermentation tank

A fermentation sample held up for checking

Daily sampling and measurement at our processing station in Mae Taeng.

Staged cherry deliveries and storage containers at our processing station

Behind the scenes at our processing station in Mae Taeng.

Coffee drying under shade netting with the hills of Mae Taeng behind

Drying and hand-sorting, bed by bed, lot by lot.

Chaptalization

Chaptalization for us started as a solution to low-sugar cherries, not a wish for an unusual process. Mid-season lots sometimes carry less sugar than we want, so we borrowed an idea from winemaking: add a fermentable sugar as food for the microbes — not to sweeten the coffee. In the cup, these lots come out clean, bright, and less winey. The Lullaby, an 8-day lot from Pa Pae, is one of ours made this way.

A Window, Not a Rule

Some of our lots ferment for about eight days, but we decide mainly by how the fermentation is behaving, not by the calendar. The goal isn't a longer fermentation — it's a wider sweet spot. A long fermentation doesn't have to taste heavily fermented.

Staged Fermentation

We don't use a single environment for the whole fermentation. Oxygen levels change stage by stage — starting with a little, then less, until it's anaerobic. What smells better during fermentation doesn't always taste cleaner in the cup.

Temperature Control

Temperature matters a great deal in fermentation, so we control it throughout. Instead of cooling the whole room, we decided to cool the fermentation itself.

Fermentation Feeds Drying

While a new lot ferments, the previous lot has time on the drying beds to lose moisture, so we can rearrange and make room for what's next. Slow fermentation means a wider decision window and a better drying workflow. We look at the whole station, not just the cup.

Daily Records

Our team records the state of every lot every morning and evening — temperature, moisture, fermentation and drying conditions. We use these records to make decisions and to repeat the results we're happy with.

Because coffee is an agricultural product, every harvest is different — weather, rainfall, cherry maturity, and soil conditions all change from season to season. We don't expect nature to repeat itself perfectly. We try to understand it better.

From Green Coffee To Roasting

We roast to reveal what's already there.

As a roastery, we believe the roast should respect the structure that already exists inside the green coffee. Density, moisture, bean shape, processing method, and storage condition all influence how heat moves through the seed — so we don't try to force every coffee into the same profile.

Sometimes that means brightness and florals. Sometimes it means chocolate, tamarind, dried fruit, or deep sweetness. Sometimes a coffee needs more development; sometimes it needs restraint.

The goal is not to make every coffee taste the same.
The goal is to make each coffee taste like the best version of itself.

A Few Favorites

From the current lineup.

A small selection — see the full, current price lists for stock and every lot we carry.

Washed

Village 13

Orange, floral, tamarind — smooth and balanced. Our first origin.

Pa Pae, Chiang Mai · 1,260–1,300 masl

Washed

Morning Rain

Floral, orange, cotton candy, lemon, stone fruit. 9th place, Specialty Coffee Association of Thailand 2022.

Baan Sib Lhang, Chiang Rai · 1,200–1,450 masl

Honey Process

Honeymoon

Creamy, buttery body with honey, floral, peach, orange, and a hint of lactic acidity.

Baan Sib Lhang, Chiang Rai · 1,200–1,450 masl

Natural

Sweet

Blueberry, lychee, chocolate.

Baan Sib Lhang, Chiang Rai · 1,200–1,450 masl

Chaptalization Anaerobic Natural · 192hrs

The Lullaby

Floral, lemon, raspberry, orange, vanilla, roasted almond, cotton candy. An 8-day lot from Pa Pae, fermented with added sugar as food for the microbes.

Pa Pae, Chiang Mai · 1,300 masl

Anaerobic Natural · 192hrs

Cherry Wine

Cherry, raisins, plum, crafted chocolate, hint of floral.

Papae, Chiang Mai · 1,300 masl

Anaerobic Natural · 96hrs

A Certain Romance

Lemon tea, orange, pomelo, tamarind, silky mouthfeel. Scored 84.5 at Cup of Excellence.

Pa Pae, Chiang Mai · 1,300 masl

Anaerobic

Rose Wine

Winey, plumeria, rose, strawberry jam.

Baan Sib Lhang, Chiang Rai · 1,200–1,450 masl

Honey Co-Fermentation · Anaerobic

Honey Pie

Honey, floral, peach, orange, with lactic acidity and a creamy body.

Baan Sib Lhang, Chiang Rai · 1,200–1,450 masl

Anaerobic Natural

Sexy Boy

Passion fruit, grape, blackberry, black currant, lactic acidity.

Baan Sib Lhang, Chiang Rai · 1,200–1,450 masl

Anaerobic Natural · 96hrs

Pai Village

Lemon tea, tamarind, plum, dried fruit, brown sugar.

Pai, Mae Hong Son · 1,450–1,600 masl

Washed

The Nuts

Roasted almond, citrus, caramel, chocolate, bright acidity.

Maejam, Lampang · 1,200–1,300 masl

Full Roasted Coffee List Full Green Bean List

Our Direction

Building a better Thai coffee supply chain.

Aligner Coffee is ultimately about connection. We want farmers to receive fair value for their work. We want roasters and cafés to understand where their coffee comes from. We want customers to experience Thai coffee with the same curiosity and respect often given to famous origins around the world. And we want more value to remain within the communities producing the coffee.

This is why we continue to work directly with farmers, experiment together, share knowledge, and develop long-term relationships rather than treating each harvest as a one-time transaction.

We are still learning. Still experimenting. Still meeting new producers. Still discovering what Thai coffee can become. But the direction remains the same.

Sustainably grown. Fairly traded. Proudly Thai.

From the mountains of Thailand to the coffee in your cup — Aligner Coffee, aligning Thai farmers with the world, one cup at a time.

Specialty coffee, grown where we live.

Shade-Grown

Handpicked

The Process

Direct From Farm

Aligning people, land, and coffee.

From the mountains of Northern Thailand.

Pa Pae (ป่าแป๋)

Ban Sib Lang (บ้านสิบหลัง)

Ban Chang (บ้านช้าง)

Mae Jam (แม่แจ๋ม)

Pai

Coffee grown within the forest.

The process is not the goal. The goal is control.

Chaptalization

A Window, Not a Rule

Staged Fermentation

Temperature Control

Fermentation Feeds Drying

Daily Records

We roast to reveal what's already there.

From the current lineup.

Village 13

Morning Rain

Honeymoon

Sweet

The Lullaby

Cherry Wine

A Certain Romance

Rose Wine

Honey Pie

Sexy Boy

Pai Village

The Nuts

Building a better Thai coffee supply chain.

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