Characteristics of Yunnan Coffee: Geographical Conditions and Overall Flavor - How to Brew Yunnan Small-Bean Coffee for the Best Taste?

As our own Chinese coffee, Yunnan coffee's greatest advantage for us coffee professionals is achieving the shortest distance from production to consumption, allowing coffee evaluation to quickly feedback to the planting source. Everyone is continuously paying attention to the development and progress of Yunnan coffee, and FrontStreet Coffee is no exception.

Yunnan Coffee Growing Region Geography

Yunnan is China's most concentrated coffee growing region, with 98% of the country's coffee coming from Yunnan. The cultivated varieties are the world's mainstream small-seeded Arabica coffee, thus locally called "small-seeded coffee." Friends who understand specialty coffee should know that coffee's excellent flavor cannot be separated from the unique geographical conditions of the growing region and the microclimate they form.

Yunnan coffee is distributed across eight regions, with four main growing areas: Pu'er, Baoshan, Dehong, and Lincang. These places have natural conditions of low latitude, high altitude, and large day-night temperature differences, making Yunnan a golden planting area for producing high-quality Arabica coffee. Yunnan coffee is generally planted on higher mountain slopes, with rolling hills, fertile soil, and ample sunlight, plus concentrated rainfall from the rainy season, allowing coffee trees to quickly integrate into this terroir.

In recent years, with the expansion of international trade, Baoshan's small-seeded coffee from Lujiangba has become renowned. Baoshan has a low-latitude mountainous subtropical monsoon climate. Due to its location on a low-latitude plateau with complex topography, it creates a three-dimensional climate of "four seasons in one mountain, different weather within ten miles." The annual temperature difference is small, daily temperature difference is large, with average annual temperatures of 14-17°C; precipitation is abundant with distinct wet and dry seasons, unevenly distributed, with annual rainfall of 700-2100mm. Combined with reasonably low rainfall, this brings great advantages to coffee fruit production, creating the unique sweet aftertaste of Baoshan small-seeded coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee acquired Baoshan small-seeded coffee, listing it as one of the representative daily beans from growing regions, letting everyone taste the flavor of washed Yunnan small-seeded coffee.

Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee's menu features an exclusive Yunnan natural Typica coffee. Why is it exclusive? Because this coffee comes from FrontStreet Coffee's own plantation.

In 2013, FrontStreet Coffee established its own plantation in Lincang. From site selection, variety selection, seedling cultivation, planting, harvesting, processing, to roasting—everything was handled by FrontStreet Coffee, accumulating considerable experience and knowledge along the way.

Lincang is influenced by the warm and humid air currents from the Indian Ocean and southwest monsoon. The four seasons are not distinctly different, but wet and dry seasons are clearly separated. There's abundant rainfall, long sunshine hours with average annual sunshine exceeding 2000 hours, short frost periods, and some areas are frost-free year-round. The three-dimensional climate is obvious, with mountainous areas having average annual temperatures of 13-15°C. FrontStreet Coffee specially selected the most primitive Arabica variety—Typica. After 5-6 years of cultivation, FrontStreet Coffee finally harvested the first batch in 2020, processed using natural drying method, and named it "Frontsteet 2013."

Is Yunnan Small Bean Typica or Catimor?

Yunnan originally planted two ancient Arabica varieties: Typica and Bourbon. However, in recent years, to increase yield, Yunnan has largely switched to planting Catimor varieties, with other varieties accounting for only a small minority. This means that when we talk about Yunnan small beans today, we're referring to Yunnan Catimor.

Although classified under the Arabica species, Catimor is not entirely of Arabica bloodline. Catimor is a hybrid between Timor (which belongs to the Robusta species) and Caturra (a Bourbon variety), carrying 25% Robusta bloodline. The Robusta genes give Catimor strong disease resistance and high yield.

Catimor trees are relatively short and small with many branches, allowing for compact planting and vigorous growth without shade. Not only does it have strong resistance to leaf rust disease, but it also has some tolerance to common coffee berry diseases, which helps improve the fruit-bearing rate of coffee trees. The fruits also mature faster than other varieties, naturally increasing yield. However, the Robusta genes cause flavor defects in Catimor. When planted at low altitudes, the coffee tastes bitter, and improper processing can result in harsh astringency, musty, and earthy flavors. When planted at 1200 meters altitude, the aroma is more neutral and less complex than pure Arabica beans like Caturra.

Yunnan Coffee Processing Methods

Although there are many Yunnan coffee beans on the market using special processing to highlight aroma, FrontStreet Coffee believes that to truly understand Yunnan small-seeded coffee, one should start with traditional natural processing methods to taste the inherent flavors of Yunnan coffee. Therefore, the three Yunnan coffees that FrontStreet Coffee keeps on its menu all use washed and natural processing.

As Yunnan's representative, FrontStreet Coffee chose washed processing for Baoshan's small-seeded coffee. Washed processing removes the mucilage layer through fermentation and rinsing before drying, allowing Yunnan small beans to exhibit the flavor profile characteristic of the growing region. Meanwhile, Frontsteet 2013 coffee uses natural drying. First, FrontStreet Coffee ensures harvesting only fully ripe red cherries, regularly turning them to ensure even drying. The mesh of the drying beds helps with air circulation, avoiding negative over-fermentation.

Yunnan Small-seeded Coffee Brewing Suggestions

For roasting, FrontStreet Coffee believes that Yunnan coffee should have both rich coffee aroma and a certain acidity, so FrontStreet Coffee uses a medium roast level.

For brewing, FrontStreet Coffee feels that regardless of the extraction method, the prerequisite is ensuring the coffee beans are freshly roasted. Since coffee enters its optimal tasting period after 4-7 days of resting post-roasting, beyond this period, coffee aroma will volatilize rapidly, and flavor will be significantly diminished. FrontStreet Coffee deeply understands the importance of coffee freshness, so shipped coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days, while coffee served in stores is also confirmed to be within its tasting period.

Next, FrontStreet Coffee will use the same method as served in stores to brew a cup of FrontStreet Coffee's own roasted Yunnan small-seeded daily bean. FrontStreet Coffee considers that Yunnan small-seeded coffee tends toward a balanced flavor—neither too high acidity nor heavy bitterness. Therefore, we use a V60 dripper with medium-fine grind and medium water temperature for extraction.

Dripper: V60

Water Temperature: 90°C

Grind Size: 80% pass-through rate on #20 standard sieve

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

Coffee Amount: 15g

Using three-stage extraction: after grinding the coffee, pour it into the filter paper. Start from the center and pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. Note to use a small water flow throughout, spiraling steadily from inside to outside. In the second stage, pour 95g of water. When the coffee liquid has almost finished flowing, start pouring the third stage of 100g. Remove the dripper once all the coffee has filtered through. The time should be around 2 minutes, with about 10 seconds margin for error.

Small-seeded Catimor coffee has nutty and berry dry aroma. You can taste the sweetness of nuts, herbs, chocolate, and brown sugar, balanced plum-like acidity, with a light fruity acidity in the aftertaste.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473