Yunnan Coffee vs Hainan Coffee: Flavor Profile, Taste Characteristics and Varietal Advantages of Yunnan Arabica

Both Yunnan and Hainan grow coffee, but only Yunnan coffee is famous. Why is this? In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will talk about the stories of Yunnan coffee and Hainan coffee.

When Were Coffee Trees Introduced to Yunnan?

The first coffee tree in Yunnan was introduced in 1904 by French missionary Alfred Liétard at the China-Vietnam border. The coffee fruits from this tree were relatively small, and the coffee beans were also small in size, so people called it "small bean coffee" (later, through genetic comparison, it was confirmed that this small bean coffee was the Typica variety). Due to low fruit yield, people would extract the seeds (coffee beans) after harvesting and bury them in the ground as ordinary plants, without cultivating them extensively as an economic crop.

When Were Coffee Trees Introduced to Hainan?

The first coffee tree in Hainan was introduced from Malaysia in 1908. Since Malaysia has low altitude and a hot, humid climate, the coffee tree varieties planted were all Robusta coffee varieties that are heat and humidity resistant and can better resist pests. Robusta coffee fruits are relatively large, and the coffee beans are also larger than Arabica varieties, but the flavor is not as refined as Arabica varieties. It's not difficult to see that Hainan's coffee varieties are mainly Robusta.

The Development of Yunnan Coffee

After the founding of New China, under the guidance of experts, Yunnan began mass cultivation of coffee trees and supplied large quantities of coffee beans to the Soviet Union. At that time, Yunnan's coffee cultivation area once reached 4,000 hectares. After the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, the Soviet Union banned China from selling coffee beans to them, and Yunnan's coffee history was abruptly interrupted. This led to Yunnan coffee farmers extensively cutting down coffee trees and switching to other crops. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Nestlé began coffee cultivation in Yunnan. To increase yield, they started introducing Catimor coffee varieties from Brazil. By 1997, the entire cultivation area in Yunnan reached 7,800 hectares. (At this time, Yunnan had almost completely abandoned the low-yield Typica and switched to the high-yield Catimor variety).

After 2000, although Colombian coffee beans were similar to Yunnan coffee beans and could sell for 25 yuan/kg, Yunnan coffee beans could only sell for 15 yuan/kg. When there was a large gap between coffee purchase prices and futures prices, Yunnan coffee bean purchase prices also fluctuated continuously, leading farmers to suddenly neglect their coffee plantations and then suddenly cultivate them carefully again.

In 2008, due to speculation in Pu'er tea, people stopped buying Pu'er tea. To reduce losses for tea farmers, the government encouraged everyone to start planting coffee trees. At that time, the highest selling price exceeded 40 yuan/kg. Under such market conditions, Yunnan's coffee cultivation area rapidly increased again. However, with the emergence of the specialty coffee industry, the flavor of Yunnan Catimor coffee beans could not keep up with the specialty era, nor could it escape the fate of being "instant coffee raw material." Yunnan coffee dropped back to around 17 yuan/kg in 2012.

Until recent years, with the continuous development of the specialty coffee industry, coffee bean processing methods have become increasingly innovative. Through various innovative ways of processing coffee beans, the flavor quality has been enhanced. Yunnan coffee also recognized this and used special processing methods to cover up the flavor shortcomings of Catimor coffee, and everyone who drank it said it was good! Thus, Yunnan coffee beans began to actively appear in the specialty coffee market. However, FrontStreet Coffee believes that to make a cup of coffee taste good, you cannot rely on covering things up—the natural flavor of the food itself is most important. Therefore, in 2014, FrontStreet Coffee began planting Typica varieties in Yunnan. That's right, the same variety as the ancestor coffee tree of Yunnan coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee chose the Typica variety because it is the oldest coffee variety, and all the Arabica coffee varieties we see today are derived from this variety. The variety itself has a clean coffee flavor. Although the yield is not as high as Catimor and cultivation is more difficult, its refined acidity and balanced flavor always leave a lasting impression. The Typica coffee beans from Yunnan planted by FrontStreet Coffee have refined acidity, licorice-like sweetness, slightly lower body, and overall balance.

The Development of Hainan Coffee

Hainan Island has an area of 34,000 square kilometers. Except for coastal tidal flats and a few mountainous areas in the central region, it can develop coffee cultivation and has unique advantages for developing the coffee industry. In 1987, China's first instant coffee factory was established in Hainan. The investment group at that time invested in establishing a 1,000-mu coffee demonstration plantation base in Sanjiang Town, Qiongshan City, Hainan Province, and adopted a "company + farmer" model to fundamentally solve the raw material shortage problem. This indicated that Hainan's coffee industry was striving to solve the bottlenecks restricting its development and strengthen its advantageous industries. However, more than a decade passed, and "Hainan coffee" failed to quickly capture the market. Instead, foreign "Nestlé" coffee made deep inroads into China, established factories, and quickly captured 70% of the market; while "Hainan coffee" could only retreat to a market share of just over ten percent.

Why didn't "Hainan coffee" develop despite having such good resources? An important reason was the shortage of raw materials—companies had no rice to cook with. Hainan began large-scale coffee cultivation in the 1960s, reaching over 200,000 mu of cultivation by the early 1980s. However, due to lack of unified supporting development, such as variety breeding, technical support, rational allocation of cultivation and deep processing, industrial development, and international trade, it resulted in "coffee hurting farmers." Currently, the coffee cultivation area has shrunk to 1/10 of what it was in the early 1980s. According to local Hainan coffee companies, the coffee raw materials purchased locally in Hainan each year only account for 1/4 to 1/3 of what the entire factory needs, with the vast majority of raw materials relying on imports or purchases from Yunnan. Each year, due to rising costs of purchasing raw materials, companies' production costs have greatly increased.

Secondly, although products are in short supply, companies have limited production capacity and have not formed a solid "sphere of influence" or应有的品牌效益. When Hainan's coffee factory was established in 1987, the designed production capacity was only 300 tons annually, while some poor coffee-producing countries have built coffee processing plants with scales of over 10,000 tons. According to local coffee companies, in terms of new product development, Hainan has long been at the forefront of domestic instant coffee companies. Currently, the product series has reached more than 10 varieties, and products are sold nationwide to 31 provinces, cities, and autonomous regions, with some exports abroad. Although products are in short supply, due to scale and capacity limitations, while the sales range is wide, there are not many large-scale markets. Companies must expand their production capacity, but they lack sufficient financial support.

Industry insiders point out that from the experience of coffee development in some African and South Asian countries, government policies such as providing improved varieties and technology free of charge, issuing grain subsidies or interest-free/low-interest loans, and reducing or exempting income tax for growers are very important for coffee cultivation. Hainan coffee should also strengthen macro-guidance to solve current problems such as fragmented coffee cultivation, single varieties, backward technology, unstable quality, and difficult sales channels.

In response to Hainan's coffee development bottlenecks, the government and enterprises have begun to address them. Recently, the Hainan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government proposed that while vigorously developing tropical efficient agriculture, attention should be paid to developing advantageous resource-based industries, utilizing Hainan's unique environmental advantages to develop and strengthen various irreplaceable resource-based industries. This provides a good external environment for coffee raw material production. Relevant enterprises and units have also actively begun to take action. In addition to establishing a 1,000-mu coffee demonstration plantation base, there will be other follow-up measures. Equipment updates and renovations have increased production scale to nearly 400 tons annually, and varieties and scale have been further improved; professional design companies have been hired to reposition and repackage the enterprise and products, intending to reshape their image and return to the stage.

Why Can Yunnan Coffee Be Developed into Specialty Coffee, But Hainan Coffee Cannot?

Because of the coffee tree varieties. As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, Yunnan coffee tree cultivation is mainly the Catimor coffee variety, and they have also replanted large quantities of Typica varieties. Hainan coffee, from beginning to end, has only cultivated Robusta varieties.

As an ancient original variety among Arabica varieties, Typica naturally has clean coffee flavor and bright acidity; while Catimor is a hybrid of Arabica and Robusta, but Robusta only accounts for 25% of the genes, so even though the flavor is not as refined as Typica, after processing method modifications, it can make everyone fall in love with it.

But Robusta doesn't work. Due to its own variety characteristics, compared to Arabica coffee beans, Robusta has higher caffeine, amino acid, and chlorogenic acid content. Chlorogenic acid is the source of bitterness, so Robusta naturally lacks the unique elegant aroma of Arabica beans. Instead, it has a fuller, lower-bodied taste, with flavors of walnuts, peanuts, hazelnuts, wheat, grains, and even pungent earthy notes. Because of Robusta's poor flavor, it is often rejected by the specialty coffee industry and can only be used as instant coffee raw material.

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