What Are the Best Hainan Coffee Brands_ What's the Price per Bag_ The Past and Present of Hainan Coffee

Hainan coffee is rich without being bitter, fragrant without being harsh, and carries a fruity character all its own.

Nationwide, 95% of Chinese coffee is grown in Yunnan, while Hainan accounts for less than 2% of the country's total. Yet most people have heard of Hainan coffee and know nothing about Yunnan. Why?

In Hainan, coffee was never just a drink, nor the preserve of the fashionable. It is a beloved form of everyday leisure, steeped in local feeling and cultural memory.

Xinglong: The Earliest Local Coffee Brand

The story of Xinglong coffee is inseparable from the Xinglong Overseas Chinese Farm. Founded in 1951, it was China's earliest and largest farm of its kind, resettling tens of thousands of returned overseas Chinese from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and beyond.

In the 1950s, those returnees from Southeast Asia brought more than the habit of drinking coffee and the craft of roasting and brewing it — they brought the beans that would make Xinglong coffee famous.

In 1960, Premier Zhou Enlai visited Xinglong Farm, tasted the local coffee, and pronounced: "Xinglong's coffee is world-class. I have drunk many foreign coffees, but the coffee we grow ourselves is the best."

Xinglong's roasting follows Southeast Asian tradition, and this local coffee suits it perfectly. Roasting demands careful control of the heat — and the timely addition of white sugar, salt, and butter, which makes the coffee exceptionally fragrant and full.

Today the small town of Xinglong is home to more than 30 coffee shops, big and small.

Fushan: Putting Hainan Coffee on the World Map

Fushan is another of Hainan's earliest coffee-growing areas.

As early as 1935, Chen Xianzhang, a returned overseas Chinese from Indonesia, introduced coffee to Fushan and founded the Fumin Farm for that purpose, with products exported to Southeast Asia.

In 1957, Zhu De and Liu Bocheng toured the Fushan coffee plantations and praised them warmly after tasting. From then on, Fushan coffee won national fame.

During the turmoil of the following decades, the Fushan coffee plantations were destroyed entirely.

It was not until 1976 that Xu Xiuyi, a Fushan farmer still under 40, resolved to revive the region's glory. He founded a collective enterprise, expanded the plantation base, and built a processing plant jointly with the county.

In Fushan, he established the region's first enterprise spanning coffee cultivation, processing, and trade.

In recent years, Chengmai county has poured energy into developing its coffee industry and promoting coffee culture — lifting both the quality of Fushan's specialty coffee and the international profile of the Fushan name.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Curious about Chinese-grown coffee after reading about Hainan? Yunnan is where its specialty scene lives, and the easiest starting point is FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Baoshan small-bean Arabica. Yunnan's "small-bean" coffee is simply Arabica — the smallest-fruited of the three original coffee species — first planted in 1904, when the French missionary Father Tien brought Typica seeds from Vietnam to Zhukula village in Binchuan county. Grown in Baoshan's frost-free, dry-hot river valley and processed washed, then roasted medium, it pours a gentle cup of nut and chocolate sweetness with a touch of plum acidity — an approachable, friendly introduction to Yunnan's terroir.

For a clearer expression of the region, step up to FrontStreet's 2013 Yunnan Natural Typica, grown on FrontStreet's own estate from fully ripe, all-red cherries and sun-dried the traditional way. Roasted medium for balance, it offers dark berry tones with caramel sweetness, chocolate, a hint of dried apricot — and a black tea finish that lingers after the swallow.