Normal Day Blend Programme

Coffee bushes growing beneath a canopy of mature shade trees — Coffee under a standing canopy. The trees are the crop's roof, not its competition.

Dense forest understorey, uncleared, with vine-covered trunks and living ground cover — Understorey left uncleared — leaf litter, vines and living soil instead of bare earth between rows.

A woven basket filled with ripe red coffee cherries — The day's picking. Ripe fruit only, sorted by hand at the farm.

Reference imagery. The first two frames show what shade-grown cultivation looks like; they were not photographed at Mae Hang.

The base

Mae Hang, Chiang Rai

In Mae Hang Luang, high in Chiang Rai, our growing partner returned from the city to the land that raised him. He does not clear forest to plant coffee. He grows it inside the forest — under the canopy of standing trees, alongside wild honey and traditional tea, in one system rather than three plots.

Shade-grown coffee ripens slowly. That is the whole point. Slower maturation builds sugar and structure, and it is why this lot can hold its shape under milk without being roasted dark to compensate.

The harvest is processed, cupped and roasted with the farm rather than around it — shared processing knowledge, honest feedback on every lot, and a price intended to make a standing forest worth more than a cleared one.

Mae Hang is the constant in every blend we build. Deep chocolate, a round body, and balance that never shouts. It is the floor the rest of the cup is built on.

A coffee branch carrying ripe red and unripe green cherries together — Forest-grown Thai coffee. Certification requirements are agreed for the selected lots and supply chain.

The signature

The imported lots,
and where they come from

Foundation is not memory. A cup that is only balanced is forgettable, so every blend carries one imported lot chosen for a process that lifts a single note out and holds it there.

Chosen for process, not prestige

Barrel ageing. Yeast-selected fermentation. Extended anaerobic. Honey and natural processing. We are not buying an origin's reputation — we are buying a specific thing that happens to the cup, and matching it to the note your menu is missing.

Working origins include Honduras, Colombia, Brazil and Ethiopia, alongside Thai lots beyond Mae Hang.

Certification to your brief

Rainforest Alliance is a programme development goal, with requirements defined across the participating farm and supply chain. Imported lots can be selected to a certification brief, subject to supporting documentation.

The method

How your blend gets built

This is a programme, not a catalogue. Nothing below is a fixed recipe — the blends that follow are directions we have taken, and any of them can be cut again for your bar.

Taste the room

We sit at your pass or your bar and taste what you already serve. What has to change is decided from your menu, not from our stock list.

Fix the base

Mae Hang is the constant — Thai, forest-grown, structurally reliable. It is the majority of every blend we build.

Choose the signature

One imported lot, selected for process rather than origin prestige — whichever carries the note your menu is missing.

Roast to the bar

Profiles are cut on a 1 kg batch roaster, so a revision costs one morning rather than a quarter.

Revise in service

You brew it in service and tell us what broke. We recut and send again. Two or three rounds is normal.

A roaster working at the black and brass Probat drum, roast log on the whiteboard behind — Why the batch size matters

A 1 kg drum is small enough that changing your profile costs one morning and one kilo of green, not a production run. That is the whole reason we can keep revising until the cup is right for your bar — a larger roastery would need you to commit to a quarter of it first.

The lab laid out: the Probat Probatino, the cupping table, and house bags on the shelf — The lab, laid out — roaster, cupping table and the day's samples in one room. Illustration, not a photograph.

The range so far

Two reference blends.
Eight possible directions.

Vanilla Forward and Hazelnut Field are reference blends. The other eight are illustrative directions for development, showing the span the programme can cover — from a dark milk-forward workhorse to a tea-like filter. Yours will be its own entry on this page.

Vanilla Forward

Barrel aged

Milk chocolate that opens and stays, with a soft vanilla lift on the finish. Holds its shape under milk.

Milk chocolate · Nutty · Vanilla

Hazelnut Field

Anaerobic yeast

Toasted hazelnut over a creamy, coconut-sweet body. Clean tropical brightness keeps it from going heavy.

Hazelnut · Coconut · Creamy

Night Service

Natural, dark

Black cocoa and walnut, very low acidity. Built to follow a heavy course without fighting it.

Black cocoa · Walnut · Molasses

Jasmine Hour

Washed, light

Tea-like and floral, almost weightless. A filter to close a tasting menu where a heavy cup would undo the meal.

Jasmine · White peach · Tea

Citrus Morning

Washed

Bergamot and honey, bright without being sharp. Breakfast service, black or with a light milk.

Bergamot · Honey · Green apple

Stone & Sugar

Honey process

Red plum and brown sugar with a syrupy weight. Reads sweet before it reads acidic, which most guests prefer.

Red plum · Brown sugar · Syrupy

Cacao Nib

Natural

Bitter cocoa and roasted almond, built for volume milk service. Cuts through oat and soy without disappearing.

Bitter cocoa · Almond · Malt

Tropic Ferment

Extended anaerobic

Mango and passionfruit, wine-like and loud. A signature pour, or the base of a coffee cocktail.

Mango · Passionfruit · Wine-like

Palm & Coconut

Thai lots only

An all-Thai build. Palm sugar and toasted coconut — designed to sit beside Thai desserts rather than compete with them.

Palm sugar · Coconut · Sesame

House Everyday

The workhorse

Chocolate and caramel, balanced, forgiving of a busy bar. Where most venues start before we sharpen it.

Chocolate · Caramel · Almond

Every profile above is available as filter and espresso, and every one can be moved — lighter, darker, sweeter, cleaner — for your bar. That is the service. The list is only evidence that we can do it.

Sourcing & practice

Where it comes from

Base	Forest-shade smallholder — Mae Hang Luang, Chiang Rai
Cultivation	Grown inside standing forest; coffee, wild honey and tea in one system
Base certification	Certification pathway agreed per programme; documents verified per lot
Imported lots	Honduras · Colombia · Brazil · Ethiopia — selected to the cup and certification brief
Roasting	Roasted to order in Bangkok — 1 kg batches, Probat Probatino
Roast policy	Cut per venue; revised on your feedback, not on our schedule
Supply unit	1 kg kraft bag — uncoated, hand-stamped label. 250 g available for retail and gifting

What we do not claim

We would rather you read this here than find it later.

Certification is specific. A programme goal is not a certificate. Claims require documentation for the relevant lots and supply chain.
No published farmgate prices. We pay above commodity and intend that a standing forest be worth more than a cleared one — but we do not yet publish lot-level figures, and we will not imply that we do.
No carbon figure. We have never measured it. A number we do not have is a number we will not quote.
The degassing valve is plastic. We have not found a replacement that actually preserves the coffee.

The project behind the cup

Normal Day is a coffee architect,
not an importer.

We were built on one idea: the best coffee in this country is already here. It does not need replacing with something flown in — it needs someone to design it properly and put it in front of people who can judge it.

Cherries being weighed on a dial scale at the farm

At origin

With Thai growers: shared processing knowledge, honest feedback on every lot, and a price intended to make keeping the forest standing worth more than clearing it. We tune profile and blend rather than buy finished product.

At the pass and the bar

With the chefs and mixologists who taste for a living. They tell us what a cup has to do to earn a place on a menu; we build the coffee back from that answer — one kitchen, one bar, one table at a time.

Local work. Global taste.

Where it is judged

The bar we test on

Every profile is pulled here before it is pulled anywhere else. A blend that does not survive our own bar does not reach yours.

Normal Day bags on the lab counter beside the espresso machine, a cappuccino, and the group head in close-up

Espresso extracting from a bottomless portafilter into a white dimpled cup — Every revision is cupped and pulled as espresso before it is signed off.

Two ropes of espresso pouring from a spout into a dark cup — The same profile is checked under milk and black — most bars need it to hold both.

Working with us

Build your hotel’s
coffee identity

A shared Thai base, profiles developed for each outlet, and packaging that carries your brand.

Arrange a property tasting

Begin with an on-site tasting, at no cost and with no commitment. Then define the profiles, quantities and service plan together.

It startsin a forest,not on a farm.