Is Pour-Over Yunnan Coffee Delicious? Yunnan Coffee Origin Stories, Small Bean Variety Characteristics, Flavor, and Taste

Introduction

Coffee is perhaps best known as an exotic import. This crop originated in Ethiopia, Africa, while Brazil is now the largest producer of Arabica coffee. When discussing the finest coffee, people used to mention FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, but today it might be Panamanian Geisha coffee.

So, is coffee cultivated in China? Absolutely! The recent movie "Coffee or Tea?" has brought greater awareness and recognition to China's most important coffee-producing region—Yunnan.

Unlike FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopian Yirgacheffe or Panamanian Geisha coffees, which are already well-known among enthusiasts, Yunnan coffee has been gradually emerging with the development and promotion of China's domestic coffee market. Many people have developed a strong interest in Yunnan coffee, but its mystery contrasts sharply with coffees that have already established reputations. We know that FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe typically displays citrus fruit notes, FrontStreet Coffee's Panamanian Geisha evokes white floral aromas, and classic FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling coffee offers herbal and spicy flavor foundations. But what about Yunnan coffee? What does Yunnan coffee taste like? Is Yunnan coffee good to drink?

Yunnan's Coffee Regions

Coffee flavor is influenced by many factors. To understand whether Yunnan coffee is good to drink, let's first explore several aspects of Yunnan coffee.

Coffee is generally suitable for cultivation between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, an area we call the "coffee belt." Fortunately, the western and southern parts of Yunnan Province lie between 15°N latitude and the Tropic of Cancer. Additionally, most areas possess the high altitudes required for coffee cultivation, with mountainous and sloped terrain featuring significant elevation variations, fertile soil, abundant sunshine, plentiful rainfall, and substantial day-night temperature differences.

Yunnan coffee is primarily cultivated in Pu'er, Xishuangbanna, Wenshan, Baoshan, Dehong, and Lincang.

Dehong

Dehong also possesses unique climatic advantages. The entire prefecture is located near the Tropic of Cancer, at a low latitude, and is influenced by the Indian Ocean southwest monsoon, creating a subtropical monsoon climate.

The Gaoligong Mountains to the northeast block the cold, dry air from Siberia, while in summer, warm, moist air currents from the Indian Ocean rise along the windward slopes of the southwest-leaning mountains, creating abundant natural precipitation. Combined with the high sun angle in this low-latitude plateau region and good air transparency, it ranks among China's highest-quality solar radiation areas.

Annual solar radiation ranges from 137-143 calories/cm², annual rainfall between 1400-1700mm, average annual temperature 18.4-20°C, annual sunshine hours 2281-2453, annual accumulated temperature 6400-7300°C, annual land evaporation 1400-1900mm, and aridity index between 0.4-1.2.

This creates Dehong's characteristics: severe winters and hot summers are absent, rainfall is abundant with rain and heat occurring simultaneously, dry and cold seasons coincide, annual temperature variation is small while daily variation is large, frost periods are short with few frost days—providing excellent growing and overwintering conditions for coffee trees.

Baoshan

Coffee cultivation in Baoshan began in the mid-1950s, with the first coffee seedling introduced by the late patriotic overseas Chinese Mr. Liang Jinshan from Southeast Asia. In recent years, with the expansion of international trade, the small-seeded coffee from Lujiang Basin has become renowned.

Baoshan has a low-latitude mountainous subtropical monsoon climate. Due to its low-latitude plateau location and complex terrain, it creates a three-dimensional climate where "one mountain has four seasons, and ten li have different weather."

Its characteristics include: small annual temperature variation but large daily variation, average annual temperature of 14-17°C; abundant precipitation with distinct wet and dry seasons, unevenly distributed, annual rainfall of 700-2100mm.

Lincang

Lincang's unique geographical location and climate conditions have made it a focus for numerous coffee companies. Quality coffee seedling bases of 200 mu and 100 mu have been established in Mengding Town, Gengma Autonomous County, and Xingfu Farm in Lincang, respectively, with coffee cultivation being carried out in Gengma, Zhenkang, Yun County, Cangyuan, and Yongde.

Lincang City has a subtropical low-latitude plateau mountainous monsoon climate with complex terrain and topography, making it a region with multiple climate types.

Lincang is primarily influenced by warm, moist air currents from the Indian Ocean and southwest monsoons. The four seasons are not distinctly differentiated, but dry and rainy seasons are clearly separated. Rainfall is abundant, sunshine duration is long with average annual sunshine exceeding 2000 hours, frost periods are short with some regions having no frost year-round. The three-dimensional climate is obvious, with mountainous areas having average annual temperatures of 13-15°C.

Pu'er

The tea hometown of Pu'er has a 150-year history of coffee cultivation. In the early 1990s, Pu'er City began developing coffee as a dominant industry for adjusting industrial structure and increasing farmers' income.

Due to the influence of subtropical monsoon climate, most areas here are frost-free year-round, with no severe winters or extremely hot summers. Pu'er City's average annual temperature ranges from 15-20.3°C, with annual frost-free periods exceeding 315 days and annual rainfall of 1100-2780mm.

Yunnan's Coffee Varieties

Yunnan's coffee flavor is also influenced by its cultivated coffee varieties. FrontStreet Coffee's baristas often share that coffee variety is the primary foundation of a coffee's flavor profile—Geisha being a perfect example. The Geisha variety, when cultivated in Panama, offers delightful refined tea and floral aromas. After winning the Best of Panama green coffee competition in 2004, it gained worldwide fame. Coffee-producing regions around the world have begun experimenting with Geisha cultivation, and you can even find Geisha in Yunnan, with small batches of Yunnan Geisha released to the domestic market in 2020.

However, FrontStreet Coffee believes that Yunnan's characteristic flavor comes from its most extensively cultivated variety over many years—Catimor. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has selected a Yunnan Catimor as the entry-level daily coffee bean representing the Yunnan region, featuring flavors of nuts and brown sugar, with high body and overall balance.

Although classified under the Arabica species, Catimor is not entirely of Arabica lineage. Catimor is a hybrid of the Timor variety and Caturra. We know that Caturra is a natural variant of Bourbon, while Timor is a coffee variety with Robusta genes. The Robusta heritage gives Catimor higher disease and pest resistance as well as yield, but also means its flavor lacks refinement.

In addition to Catimor, Yunnan also cultivates Typica and Bourbon varieties. FrontStreet Coffee has also listed a Typica variety as a representative of Yunnan coffee. Compared to Catimor, Yunnan's Typica coffee still primarily features nut and brown sugar notes, but the Typica variety imparts slightly more refined acidity to this Yunnan coffee, with lower body and better balance.

At the entrance of FrontStreet Coffee, there happens to be one pot of Typica variety and one pot of Catimor variety planted. The Typica variety has tall trees, long nodes, low yield, and new leaves that are brown. The Catimor variety has many leaves, short nodes, dense branches, high yield, and a shorter growth cycle than Typica.

Yunnan Coffee Processing Methods

Finally, Yunnan coffee flavor comes from the choice of processing method. Yunnan coffee primarily uses washed and natural processing methods. Washed coffee is characterized by cleanliness, stability, and higher acidity. Natural processed coffee features high sweetness, rich layers, and full body.

What is the washed processing method? After harvesting, coffee cherries are machine-processed to remove skin and pulp. The depulped coffee beans are placed in fermentation tanks for fermentation, using microbial action to break down the mucilage layer. The fermented coffee beans are repeatedly washed with clean water to remove the decomposed mucilage, and finally the coffee beans are dried in the sun. The dried coffee beans can then be stored and transported to various destinations.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that washed processing best represents a coffee region's basic flavor characteristics, so FrontStreet Coffee has selected a washed processed Catimor from Baoshan as the daily coffee bean for the Yunnan region.

FrontStreet Coffee's other Yunnan coffee is FrontStreet Coffee's 2013 Natural Process Typica from Lincang. These FrontStreet Coffee 2013 Typica coffee beans are grown on FrontStreet Coffee's plantation in Lincang, Yunnan. Using natural processing, the coffee flavors display plum, blackberry, brown sugar, and nuts.

So, is Yunnan Coffee Good to Drink?

Now we understand Yunnan's origins, coffee varieties, and processing methods. These factors combine to create Yunnan coffee's nutty, brown sugar, and aromatic profile. So, is Yunnan coffee good to drink? For those who enjoy balance and nutty flavors, it's certainly delicious!

Coffee is a subjective beverage. Everyone has different preferences, so naturally, the types of coffee people enjoy vary. FrontStreet Coffee's shop menu features over fifty different coffees, with different coffee origins combined with different varieties and processing methods creating distinct flavors.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on WeChat: kaixinguoguo0925

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