Go+Cafe' at 23: Take Nothing for Granted, Not Even Walking Up the Stairs

As we get older, health problems start to follow. I had chronic inflammation of the vocal cords, and the doctors in Chiang Mai met and agreed that I should undergo radiation treatment to keep the problem from progressing to cancer. The course of treatment took almost two months. After that came recovery. The first three months were rather difficult: the swelling and inflammation around my throat from the radiation affected my swallowing, and there was mucus almost all the time, making me cough and splutter throughout the day and night. When I slept, I had to keep my head raised to reduce the choking and coughing. I found that sleeping on my side helped me breathe, so I would not stop breathing in my sleep.
After two months of lying in bed without really sleeping, things gradually improved. My voice began to return just in time for teaching the 2026 coffee roasting course, whose first class began in April.

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For the 2025–2026 processing season, we had a new special project: low-caffeine coffee.
Made through fermentation, using an approach that had never been used before in coffee processing. Traditionally, in the coffee world, decaffeinated coffee—decaf—has been produced by putting green coffee through a chemical process to extract the caffeine. The problem is that this kind of process has a considerable effect on the green coffee’s enzymatic activity, which, of course, also affects its flavor.
My own problem was that, lately, if I drank coffee after two in the afternoon, I would be wide awake all night. That made me think there must be quite a few others like me, people who simply cannot drink coffee in the afternoon. So it would be wonderful if we had a low-caffeine coffee to enjoy then.

And most importantly, it had to taste good.

The idea of removing caffeine through a special fermentation process

This is a very new idea indeed. No coffee producer anywhere in the world has yet brought it to market. But earlier research suggested that it was theoretically possible. It would simply take a fair amount of work to find the right formula. To us, that was the kind of challenge that rekindles the fire in our work.
We set up a lab, ordered various pieces of equipment and chemicals, and learned about caffeine, microorganisms, and enzymes capable of breaking caffeine down. We began the lab work almost a year before the processing season, until we had fairly clear information and a direction for how to ferment coffee to achieve lower caffeine. I had hoped that if we could reduce the caffeine by around 50%, that would already be a great success.

*At the very least, I would have some coffee for myself to drink in the afternoon.*

The experiment succeeded beyond our expectations. We sent green coffee to the laboratory at Mae Fah Luang University for caffeine analysis, comparing control samples processed in the usual way with samples from different special fermentation treatments. We were able to reduce caffeine by as much as 86% in the washed process, and by 73% in the honey and dry processes, without using any chemicals at all throughout production.

I tried drinking this coffee at four in the afternoon... and slept comfortably. No lying wide awake at all.

At the SCA Lecture Series during World of Coffee Bangkok 2026 in May, I had the honor of sharing this achievement, along with our LTLH research. I asked the audience in the lecture room what they thought of the low-caffeine coffee they had just tasted. Almost every expert there responded with the same assurance...

Very good texture!

We had opened another new door for the coffee world.

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This economic downturn, both globally and here at home, has been rather severe, with wars taking place in several regions.

I am not sure how we will make our way through it and still find some room to grow. We are still working hard to adapt, from helping our team keep up with new technologies for communication and more efficient production, to what we do locally at Go+Cafe' : adding special menu items and making the space more open and comfortable. Go+Cafe' is getting on in years. Even after several renovations, we still have to keep making adjustments to move with the times.

Who knows what else will happen from today onward? But my own health problem, one of the most difficult experiences of my life, taught me something.
Life is uncertain. But if we choose to keep living, we must live with care.
Continuing to learn and develop is one way of doing that.
And that is how we will make it through!

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Most of Ko Coffee’s customers are working-age adults through to older people.
I feel that much of our work lately has been for these customers: the research into low-caffeine coffee, which we have named Lowcap, improvements to the café, and our efforts to develop other products with good health in mind.

Who knows when the world will stop turning? We simply have to keep doing our best.

Just as Phra Ajarn Suchat of Wat Ko taught us this morning:
“Let us take nothing for granted—not even walking up the stairs.”