The administration in Quang Tri Province, north-central Vietnam has introduced an agricultural tour for coffee aficionados as they can harvest and process coffee beans and then enjoy coffee.

The 'Khe Sanh Coffee Tour' was launched at Ara Farm Hoang Luan, an organic coffee farm in Huong Hoa District, Quang Tri Province, opening a new way for local coffee farmers.

The one-day tour allows tourists to harvest and process coffee beans, then roast and grind them.

Each tourist was provided with a backpack basket before following the coffee farm owner to harvest coffee beans.

Hoang Luan, 40, the coffee farm owner, also harvested coffee beans while instructing tourists to pick ripe coffee beans but not to break coffee branches.

Tourists later cleaned coffee beans and removed low-quality seeds.

At noon, they roasted and ground the coffee beans.

Luan’s family has planted two hectares of coffee trees for 12 years.

“Five years ago, I began to farm organic coffee. I used coffee husks to fertilize the coffee trees, not chemicals, to ensure public health,” Luan said.

In the afternoon, tourists visited a coffee farm of Tran Mai Huong in the neighborhood.

The 'Khe Sanh Coffee Tour' ends at the Ta Con airport relic site where tourists can enjoy cups of fragrant hot coffee next to a C-130 military plane while learning about the heroic history of the land and admiring green coffee gardens.

The tour was designed to connect the past, the present, and the future with a slogan of 'Create Coffee, Not War.'

Duong Thi Huyen Trang, a 25-year-old resident of Vinh City in Nghe An Province, north-central Vietnam, said she was lucky to experience the coffee culture and learn useful things from successful and experienced people.

The tour brings new experiences in planting and processing coffee as well as enjoying Huong Hoa District’s specialty coffee, said Tran Thai Thien from the Huong Hoa Tourism Association.

“Each journey is not only an amazing story and memory but also the experience of local culture and traditions. The tour brings benefits to both farmers and the local economy," Thien added.

Khe Sanh holds high potential for agricultural tourism, especially coffee tours, according to Harro Boekhold, an expert in agricultural tourism from the Netherlands’ Programma Uitzending Managers.

“Besides normal tours, you can organize ones for international coffee traders, entrepreneurs, roasting and grinding units, and coffee agents,” Boekhold noted.

Huong Hoa District is home to over 3,900 hectares of coffee trees, belonging to some 6,000 households.

Quang Tri is one of the eight provinces that were chosen to develop Vietnam’s specialty coffee brands.

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