10 cafés in 3 citys. Places change: check opening hours before you go.
A Chinese-Thai coffee house open since 1952, it began with three tables near the Giant Swing and was long a place for news and politics over breakfast. Its oliang is strong and dark, sweetened and served over ice.
Order: oliang (Thai iced black coffee) · kai kra ta (pan eggs) with baguette
💡 Breakfast queues are real; it's a 10-minute walk from Sam Yot MRT.
Opened in 1933 by overseas Chinese investors as a Singapore-style kopitiam, On Lok Yun is now run by the fourth generation. The menu of kaya toast and Thai-style American breakfast has barely changed.
Order: Thai hot coffee with condensed milk · steamed bread with kaya
💡 Open about 6am to 2:30pm; closed for Chinese New Year and Songkran.
Doi Chang is the mountain village where high-altitude Arabica made Doi Chaang Thailand's best-known coffee brand abroad. Farming groups here grow, process and roast the beans you drink in the village café.
Order: Doi Chaang Arabica, black · iced latte
💡 It is a long mountain drive from Chiang Rai city; go in the dry-season harvest months to see processing.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Thai-Venezuelan family roastery that has roasted single origins since 2013. It is run by two Venezuelan sisters who both worked for years at Monmouth Coffee in London.
Order: filter of the day · flat white
Photographers Piyachart Trithaworn and Natthiti Ampriwan opened this drip-coffee bar in 2012 inside the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Coffee is hand-poured at the counter.
Order: hand-drip Thai coffee · iced drip with milk
💡 Pair it with the free exhibitions upstairs at BACC.
Warong Chalanuchpong founded Nana as a roaster in 2004, and its team includes Thailand's first World Siphonist Champion. The Ari café offers more than 30 single origins, including Thai coffee from Nan.
Order: siphon of a Thai single origin · Nan Province pour-over
Roots began as a small roaster and weekend café and opened its first full café at theCOMMONS in Thonglor. It focuses on Thai coffee and sends part of each cup's price back to farmers and processors.
Order: Thai single-origin filter · espresso tonic
Lee Ayu Chuepa, the first in his Akha village to graduate from university, founded Akha Ama in 2010 as a social enterprise buying directly from Indigenous growers in northern Thailand. This old-city café faces Wat Phra Singh.
Order: single-farm pour-over from an Akha Ama grower · latte
💡 Combine it with a visit to Wat Phra Singh across the road.
Arnon Thitiprasert opened Ristr8to in 2011 after four years in Australia and went on to win the 2017 World Latte Art Championship. He has since left to run Roast8ry, but the Nimman café still pours its known latte art.
Order: flat white · latte on the house blend of Thai, Colombian and Mexican beans
💡 Opening times end in :08 (7:08am–6:08pm), a nod to the name.
The four-storey flagship of world latte art champion Arnon Thitiprasert, opened after he left Ristr8to. It combines a roasting lab with the café.
Order: latte · Thai single-origin filter
💡 Usually less of a queue at lunchtime than Ristr8to.