Characteristics of Yunnan Arabica Coffee | Is Yunnan Coffee Delicious? How to Brew Yunnan Coffee Beans?

For many Chinese people, coffee seems to possess an innate exotic quality, labeled as an "imported product." Little do they know that "Made in China" Yunnan coffee already holds a significant place in global coffee production. According to FrontStreet Coffee's research, Yunnan's total coffee production reached 108,700 tons in 2021. Below, FrontStreet Coffee takes its own home-roasted Yunnan small-bean coffee as an example to discuss the characteristics of Yunnan coffee.

What is the "Small Bean" variety of Yunnan?

Like many coffee-growing regions, Yunnan cultivates the small-sized Arabica variety. Because China's Hainan province grows the medium-sized Robusta variety, farmers distinguish Yunnan's variety by calling it "small-bean coffee."

Since 1904, when French missionary Alfred Tiedje brought the first coffee seeds to Zhukula Village, Binchuan, Dali, Yunnan for cultivation, pioneering Yunnan's coffee industry, Yunnan now has over a century of coffee cultivation history. The最初 variety introduced by the missionary was the ancient Typica variety, belonging to pure Arabica species, with rich and diverse fruit acidity and delicate taste, recognized as a premium variety. Later, Yunnan's coffee industry suffered from global leaf rust disease, causing large-scale death of coffee trees. Additionally, many farmers believed that coffee production revenue was not high enough and chose to switch to other crops, thus significantly reducing coffee cultivation area.

In the 1980s during the Reform and Opening-up period, Yunnan coffee gradually entered the international market. In 1988, foreign enterprises like Nestlé established branches in China, supporting Yunnan's coffee industry development in multiple ways. They not only introduced high-yield, disease-resistant varieties like Catimor but also promised to purchase Yunnan coffee beans as raw materials at the then-current US futures prices. These measures further expanded Yunnan's coffee cultivation area and increased coffee farmers' enthusiasm. At the same time, it established Catimor variety's position replacing the ancient Typica trees, becoming the main variety of Yunnan coffee.

Catimor 7963 is a hybrid variety developed by the Portuguese Tropical Research Institute (HCT) specifically for coffee rust resistance, with stable shape. This variety has characteristics of compact tree shape, dwarf growth, many branches, short fruit nodes, vigorous growth, and extremely strong vitality. Its greatest features are amazing rust resistance and high yield capability. Therefore, it is deeply loved by Yunnan coffee farmers, and currently over 90% of coffee trees in Yunnan are Catimor.

However, Catimor is not a 100% Arabica variety. Catimor is a hybrid of the rust-resistant Timor and Caturra, containing 1/4 Robusta bloodline. Friends who understand coffee varieties should know that compared to small-bean varieties, Robusta has a heavier taste, obvious bitterness, mainly showing grain and walnut flavors, and can easily have earthy flavors if not processed well.

Catimor inherits Robusta genes, and with relatively rough green bean processing, its flavor is often criticized as having a devilish aftertaste. In recent years, Yunnan's coffee industry has been continuously developing and improving. Whether in cultivation management, picking and sorting, or post-processing methods, more attention has been given. FrontStreet Coffee believes that with the joint efforts of coffee professionals, Yunnan coffee quality will continue to improve.

Yunnan Coffee Growing Regions

With the continuous maturation of China's domestic coffee market and coffee industry chain, Yunnan's coffee cultivation area and production have continuously increased. Currently, Yunnan's coffee cultivation has spread across 9 prefectures and 35 counties including Pu'er City, Baoshan City, Dehong Prefecture, Lincang City, Wenshan Prefecture, Xishuangbanna, and others. FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan small-bean daily coffee comes from Baoshan.

As the earliest area for industrialized coffee cultivation in Yunnan Province, Baoshan's cultivation history can be traced back to the mid-1950s. Baoshan small-bean coffee has received much praise for its unique quality of "uniform and full particles, fresh aroma, rich fragrance, mellow taste, rich but not strong." In the late 1950s, it was rated as first-grade in the London market and earned the beautiful name "Lujiang No. 1," making small-bean coffee famous.

Baoshan's year-round frost-free warm climate is very suitable for small-bean coffee growth. Especially in the Lujiangba area, the unique dry-hot valley climate has little annual temperature difference but large day-night temperature difference, creating the unique sweet aftertaste of Baoshan small-bean coffee. Combined with reasonably low rainfall, this provides excellent conditions for coffee cherry production. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee selected Baoshan small-bean coffee as one of its representative regional daily coffees, letting everyone taste how Yunnan small-bean coffee tastes.

Yunnan Coffee Processing Methods

Some friends, after tasting Yunnan coffee beans processed with special methods, found the aroma particularly prominent and thought this was the taste of Yunnan coffee. In reality, most Yunnan coffee farmers face difficult conditions and do not have expensive processing equipment. Therefore, the vast majority of Yunnan coffee beans can only use natural processing methods, namely washed and natural processing. Although novel post-processing methods do add significant aroma to coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee believes that if you want to taste the most original flavor of Yunnan coffee, the washed process not only reduces defect rates but also produces more stable quality coffee with higher cleanliness.

FrontStreet Coffee also has a relatively popular coffee bean "FrontStreet Coffee 2013." As the name suggests, you can probably guess it's an exclusive FrontStreet Coffee product. Produced from FrontStreet Coffee's own plantation in Lincang, Yunnan, selected from the elegant-flavored Typica variety, using natural sun-drying processing to enhance the coffee's sweetness. Every November when FrontStreet Coffee's planted coffee cherries ripen successively, FrontStreet Coffee arranges workers to pick red coffee cherries one by one and spread the fresh cherries under the sun to dry naturally, turning them irregularly to ensure even dehydration and avoid negative flavors from over-fermentation. Until the coffee beans dehydrate to purplish-red and reach target moisture content, they are sent for hulling and roasting.

Yunnan coffee doesn't have the bright floral and fruity acidity of African coffee, nor the rich chocolate aroma of American coffee, nor the spice notes of Indonesian coffee. FrontStreet Coffee believes that Yunnan small-bean coffee's flavor belongs to a neutral, balanced profile—meaning it has acidity, sweetness, and bitterness. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan coffee uses medium roast to highlight the roasted chocolate and nutty aromas while preserving some acidity. FrontStreet Coffee's cupping of Yunnan small-bean daily coffee reveals nutty, herbal, and brown sugar aromas, melon-like sweetness, and plum acidity, with balanced taste. The natural-processed Typica shows fuller tropical fruit fermentation with persistent sweet aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Baoshan Small Bean Coffee Pour-Over Recommendations

Below, FrontStreet Coffee uses café-style brewing to make a cup of its home-roasted Yunnan small-bean daily coffee. FrontStreet Coffee's flavor descriptions for each coffee are based on freshly roasted beans. If coffee beans have been stored for over a month, aroma may have partially diminished, making it difficult to reproduce the original flavor during brewing. FrontStreet Coffee deeply understands the importance of freshness, so it ensures only coffee beans roasted within 5 days are shipped, allowing everyone to enjoy the complete flavor period upon receipt.

Considering that Yunnan small-bean daily coffee uses medium roast with flavors leaning toward rich, mellow nutty and chocolate notes, the deeper roast makes the coffee beans more porous and the coffee grounds more absorbent. Therefore, a medium grind size is chosen. To avoid extracting too many undesirable flavors, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium 90°C water temperature paired with a KONO dripper for extraction.

Unlike the V60 dripper, the KONO dripper's only exhaust area is the one-quarter rib section. When the water level rises above the rib section, the water level in the dripper continuously increases, creating pressure through the water's weight. Due to the relatively small outlet, it can extend the contact time between coffee particles and water, effectively extracting soluble substances as water flows, thereby enhancing the coffee's rich and full-bodied taste.

Brewing Parameters:

Dripper: KONO dripper
Water temperature: 90°C
Grind size: 75% pass-through rate on #20 standard sieve
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Coffee dose: 15g
Three-stage extraction

With three-stage extraction, after grinding the coffee, pour it into the filter paper and start with 30g of water from the center for a 30-second bloom. Note to use a small, steady stream throughout, spiraling from inside to outside. For the second stage, pour 95g of water, and when the coffee liquid has almost finished flowing, start the third stage with 100g until all coffee has filtered through, then remove the dripper. The total time is approximately 2 minutes, with about 10 seconds variance.

The washed small-bean Catimor coffee has nutty and berry dry aromas. You can taste the sweetness of nuts, herbs, chocolate, and brown sugar, with balanced plum acidity and a light fruity acidity in the aftertaste.

Important Notice :

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