Seventy-year-old coffee tycoon Chana Jiralerspong is in the news (Nov 18, 2019) after a Facebook member posted an article about his marriage to a 20-year-old woman, the Thai-language daily Matichon reported.
It is the first marriage of Mr. Chana, who created the popular Khao Shong Coffee brand in 1959 in his southern hometown of Trang.
It all began when Mr. Chira Jiralerspong, the founder, noticed that wild coffee beans were scattered on both sides of the road.
He felt that there must be a way to use these wasted beans. So he gathered them and started roasting them in different ways to create the perfect flavour.
In 1962, he introduced Khao Shong Coffee to the market.
In 1975, he established a roasted and ground coffee factory in Bangkok, and four years later “Khao Shong Instant Coffee,” the first instant coffee in Thailand using a Thai brand name, was introduced.
