Is Yunnan Small Bean Coffee Good to Drink? Flavor Profile and Brewing Tips for Yunnan Arabica Coffee Beans

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In the past two days, the news that "99% of China's coffee is produced in Yunnan" has become a hot topic on Weibo. With the help of the state over the past decade, Yunnan's coffee industry has risen, while also bringing new ideas for poverty alleviation to many local impoverished areas. Today, 99% of China's Arabica coffee beans are grown in the Yunnan region.

What is small-grained coffee?

Small-grained coffee refers to Arabica coffee beans. Currently, there are three major categories in the Rubiaceae coffee genus: Arabica (small fruit coffee), Robusta (medium fruit coffee), and Liberica (large fruit coffee).

According to information reviewed by FrontStreet Coffee, Yunnan's first coffee tree was planted in 1904 by French missionary Father Tian Deneng in Zhukula Village, Pingchuan Town, Binchuan County, Dali. At that time, there wasn't much consideration given to coffee varieties. The missionary told everyone that this coffee tree bore small-fruit variety, but didn't specify which particular variety it was.

After harvesting and drying, the kernel part inside the fruit (the coffee bean part) had relatively small grains, so later everyone recorded the coffee beans grown in Yunnan as small-grained coffee. Therefore, regardless of the variety, as long as it belongs to the Arabica lineage, it will be called small-grained coffee?

Why is Yunnan suitable for growing coffee?

The best coffee-growing regions are located in the coffee golden belt between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn (between 28° north latitude and 38° south latitude). Areas between altitudes of 1000-2000m. In China, parts of Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Taiwan, and Hainan have suitable places for coffee growth, but only Yunnan and Taiwan regions meet the high-altitude environment requirements.

Coffee trees planted in higher altitude areas experience significant day-night temperature differences at high elevations, causing coffee trees to grow slowly, store more nutrients in their bodies, form more sugars and aromas, resulting in better flavor performance of the coffee beans.

History of Yunnan Coffee Cultivation

Currently, the coffee variety widely grown in the Yunnan region is Catimor, with small areas also growing Typica, Bourbon, and Geisha.

In the early days of coffee cultivation, Typica was widely grown in Yunnan. Through genetic identification, these coffee trees were all Typica varieties of small-grained coffee brought by missionaries that had adapted to Yunnan's local terroir. In the mid-1950s, the state encouraged people to grow coffee beans in Yunnan to repay Soviet loans. After fruit harvesting and drying processing, they would be uniformly purchased by one department and then exported.

After the repayment period ended, there were few people who needed coffee domestically, so many farmers cut down coffee trees and switched to other economically beneficial crops. By 1952, scientific personnel from the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences distributed 80kg of coffee seeds to farmers in Baoshan's Lujiangba for trial planting, discovering good adaptability and excellent quality, leading to renewed development and growth of Yunnan coffee cultivation.

However, this distribution was not what truly made Yunnan重新种植起咖啡的. It wasn't until 1988 that Nestlé took notice of Yunnan's treasure land and distributed Catimor variety coffee trees that could better combat leaf rust disease, that people replanted coffee trees and continued to supply them to Nestlé. This is also why Catimor is still the coffee variety grown in the Yunnan production area.

Yunnan Small-Grained Coffee Varieties

In the 1970s and 1980s, coffee leaf rust disease broke out in many Central and South American countries, seriously affecting coffee production. A Portuguese coffee research center CIFC, targeting the coffee leaf rust situation, hybridized Timor (which carries Robusta genes) with Caturra (a Bourbon variety) in 1959 to cultivate disease-resistant and high-yielding Catimor. To solve the disaster caused by leaf rust, plus encouragement and promotion by coffee organizations, Central and South America began introducing widespread cultivation in the 1980s.

In 1988, Nestlé took notice of Yunnan's treasure land and distributed Catimor variety coffee trees that could better combat leaf rust disease, so people replanted coffee trees and continued to supply them to Nestlé.

Because Catimor carries Robusta variety genes, its flavor is not as people would wish, and it doesn't taste good when drunk directly, so everyone's impression of Yunnan coffee has remained at instant coffee. However, with the promotion of specialty coffee culture, today's Catimor coffee in the Yunnan region has received more scientific cultivation and planting, as well as the rise of post-processing methods, and coffee flavor and quality have also been greatly improved.

But FrontStreet Coffee believes that to make Yunnan coffee taste good, we must start by changing the varieties. Therefore, in 2013, FrontStreet Coffee went to Yunnan's Lincang to begin planting Typica varieties and small amounts of Bourbon varieties.

The reason for choosing Typica variety is partly because, as one of the oldest coffee varieties, it possesses pure Arabica variety genes. Due to its elegant and clean flavor, it has always been recognized as a specialty coffee variety; partly because the earliest coffee trees planted in Yunnan were also Typica varieties, brought by French missionaries.

Does Yunnan Small-Grained Coffee Taste Good?

Compared to Typica varieties, although Catimor varieties carry Robusta genes, today's Yunnan Catimor is no longer the hard-to-swallow flavor of the past. Under reasonable cultivation and traditional processing methods, Yunnan Catimor small-grained coffee will show nutty, caramel, and plum-like flavors.

While Typica varieties, under FrontStreet Coffee's careful sun-drying processing, have shown berry, brown sugar, nutty, and black tea-like sensations.

How to Brew Yunnan Small-Grained Coffee?

All coffee beans sold by FrontStreet Coffee are shipped within five days of the roasting date. Only freshly roasted coffee beans can exhibit the most beautiful flavors of coffee! To preserve the sour-sweet sensation and tea-like characteristics of Yunnan coffee, FrontStreet Coffee gives it a medium roast. When brewing, you can use a V60 dripper, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, medium grind (about coarse sugar size/China No. 20 standard sieve pass rate 75%), water temperature 88-89°C.

Specific brewing technique: First pour 30g of water for a 30s bloom; second stage, pour in small circles to 125g, wait for the water level in the coffee bed to drop to half before continuing to pour, then continue pouring in small circles to 225g, wait for all dripping to complete, total extraction time about 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

Important Notice :

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