Story 2: A Royal Forest Legacy

When Tea Helped Transform a Community

Before tea became an important source of livelihood, parts of the mountain region were associated with shifting cultivation, forest clearing, and opium production.

For the people of these mountains, a different future meant finding a way to build livelihoods without losing the forests and natural environment on which their community depended. It was a journey that required patience, trust, and a new sense of possibility.

A significant transition began in the early 1970s, when His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great, King Rama IX, visited highland communities in the area and encouraged alternative crops that could provide income while supporting a more sustainable future.

During his visit, the King presented the community with its first tea plant, introducing tea as a possible alternative livelihood. That first tea plant became a symbol of a new direction for Doi Pu Muen and the beginning of a tea heritage that continues today.

Yet transformation did not happen overnight.

Tea plants require patience. They must be cultivated and cared for before the first meaningful harvest. Community leaders had to demonstrate that tea could provide a viable livelihood and encourage families to consider a future beyond opium cultivation.

The change therefore required leadership, trust, and a willingness to work toward results that would not appear immediately.

Over time, tea cultivation expanded across the mountain. Assam tea could grow alongside other trees, helping support a landscape in which agriculture and forest ecosystems remained connected. Tea became more than an alternative crop. It became part of a wider story of livelihood development, environmental stewardship, and community resilience.

Today, visitors can still learn about the community’s tea heritage and the royal initiative that helped open a new chapter for Doi Pu Muen.

Grandpa Muen’s Tea honours this legacy, not only as a product from the mountain, but as a reminder of how one new possibility can help change the future of a community.

One tea plant was given. A community began a new journey.