What Makes Yunnan Coffee Beans Special? Where Does Yunnan Coffee Rank?

A decade ago, Yunnan coffee was still stuck with the impression of "poor quality and low price," and many coffee professionals would show difficulty upon hearing it. Today, however, Yunnan coffee beans are becoming increasingly common in specialty coffee shops, with some even offering different flavor profiles. For instance, FrontStreet Coffee offers two single-origin coffees from Yunnan region: the washed Yunnan Baoshan Peaberry and the natural Typica.

The Development of Yunnan Coffee

The cultivation of Yunnan coffee began in 1904 when French missionary Alfred Tietje introduced the first coffee tree to Zhukula Village in Binchuan, Yunnan. Thus, Yunnan's connection with coffee has spanned over a century.

Commercial cultivation truly began in the 1950s when the renowned botanist Professor Qin Renchang from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, identified red fruits found in the courtyards of Dai farmers in Luxi County, Dehong Prefecture, as Coffea arabica. Under his recommendation, coffee seedlings were trial-planted at Mangshi Forest Farm and Lujiangba in Baoshan. The latter officially commenced production in 1955, marking the beginning of a new era of coffee research and production in New China.

Yunnan coffee truly entered the international market starting from 1988 when Nestlé established a branch in China. Not only did they introduce the high-yield, disease-resistant Catimor variety, but they also promised to purchase Yunnan coffee beans as raw materials at the current US futures price. Subsequently, brands like Starbucks and Maxwell House also successively established factories in Yunnan to purchase green beans, further expanding the area of coffee cultivation in Yunnan. FrontStreet Coffee learned from relevant materials that due to farmers' lack of knowledge about coffee cultivation and crude production and processing methods, Yunnan green coffee beans have long been used as raw material for instant coffee, constrained by the international futures price of coffee. To break free from these constraints, industrial transformation and upgrading are essential, and the specialized production of fine coffee has become Yunnan coffee's new journey forward.

The Current Status of Yunnan Coffee

In recent years, with the advancement of China's coffee wave and society's emphasis on rural economy and sustainable development, coffee professionals from around the world have visited Yunnan. Everyone continues to improve local coffee quality in terms of coffee pest and disease control, shade trees, soil and water conservation, planting altitude, and fresh fruit picking and processing methods. Yunnan coffee has gradually gained attention and recognition. Domestic and international coffee brands such as Starbucks, Blue Bottle Coffee, Luckin Coffee, and Manner have also launched products from Yunnan region, expanding people's awareness of Yunnan coffee's flavor and quality.

Compared to before, people are now willing to actively learn about Yunnan as a "new producing region." Many customers who visit FrontStreet Coffee stores for pour-over coffee will ask if there are beans from Yunnan, showing that the efforts of the Yunnan coffee industry are achieving positive results.

Where Does Yunnan's Specialty Coffee Come From?

Currently, Yunnan coffee cultivation is distributed across eight regions, with six main producing areas: Pu'er, Baoshan, Dehong, Lincang, Nujiang, and Xishuangbanna.

These places have natural conditions of low latitude, high altitude, and large temperature differences between day and night, making Yunnan a golden planting area for producing high-quality Arabica coffee. Coffee is generally planted between higher altitude hillsides. The rolling hills, fertile soil, abundant sunlight, and concentrated rainfall brought by the rainy season allow coffee trees to quickly integrate into the local terroir. Yunnan coffee has successively obtained five geographical indication protection products: "Baoshan Peaberry Coffee," "Zhukula Coffee," "Dehong Peaberry Coffee," "Pu'er Peaberry Coffee," and "Simao Coffee." FrontStreet Coffee's representative from Yunnan region is the selected Baoshan Peaberry Coffee.

In recent years, as international trade continues to expand, Baoshan's coffee cultivation has grown, with Lujiangba's peaberry coffee becoming particularly renowned. Baoshan has a low-latitude mountainous subtropical monsoon climate. Due to its location at low latitudes and high altitudes with complex terrain and landforms, it forms a three-dimensional climate of "four seasons in one mountain, different weather within ten li." The annual temperature variation is small, while the daily temperature variation is large, with an average annual temperature of 14-17°C. Precipitation is abundant with distinct wet and dry seasons, unevenly distributed, with annual rainfall of 700-2100 mm. The reasonably low rainfall volume provides extremely advantageous conditions for coffee fruit production, creating the unique sweet aftertaste of Baoshan peaberry coffee.

Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee's bean menu features another exclusively produced Yunnan natural Typica coffee. Why is it exclusive? Because this coffee is produced from FrontStreet Coffee's own estate. In 2013, FrontStreet Coffee established its own estate in Lincang, handling everything from site selection, variety selection, seedling cultivation, planting, harvesting, processing, to roasting, from which FrontStreet Coffee has summarized considerable experience and knowledge. Lincang is influenced by the Indian Ocean warm and humid air currents and southwest monsoon, with distinct dry and rainy seasons, abundant rainfall, long sunshine hours, short frost periods, and some areas being frost-free year-round. The three-dimensional climate is very obvious, making it extremely suitable for coffee to accumulate nutrients and transform into more flavor compounds. FrontStreet Coffee specifically selected the most original Arabica variety—Typica—and produced it using natural processing methods, naming it "FrontStreet Coffee 2013," which has received positive feedback from many customers for its elegant and mild taste.

Yunnan Coffee Using Natural Processing Methods

Some friends have told FrontStreet Coffee after tasting a certain Yunnan coffee bean processed using novel flavor enhancement methods that they experienced rich floral notes and strong wine flavors. FrontStreet Coffee believes this is not the inherent flavor of Yunnan coffee. If you truly want to explore the "taste of Yunnan," FrontStreet Coffee recommends FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Peaberry daily brewer, which uses washed processing. The daily brewer launched by FrontStreet Coffee carefully selects 7 classic origins, covering multiple highly representative producing areas and varieties, using natural processing methods customary to each origin to present the unique flavor profile of each region.

Most Yunnan coffee farmers face harsh conditions and do not possess expensive processing equipment, so the vast majority of Yunnan coffee beans commonly use natural processing methods—washed and natural. The reason for choosing washed Yunnan peaberry is that FrontStreet Coffee believes washed Yunnan coffee not only reduces defect rates but also produces more stable coffee quality and higher cleanliness of Yunnan beans, making it a natural processing method that FrontStreet Coffee particularly favors. Additionally, Yunnan has abundant water resources, and the harvest season easily encounters rainy days, making it difficult to adopt natural processing methods on a large scale.

Of course, Yunnan also has many high-quality natural processed coffees. For example, the "FrontStreet Coffee 2013" coffee beans produced using natural drying methods come from FrontStreet Coffee's own estate in Lincang, Yunnan. Selected from the elegant Typica variety, using natural processing methods to enhance the coffee's sweetness. Every November, when the coffee fruits planted by FrontStreet Coffee ripen successively, FrontStreet Coffee arranges workers to pick red coffee cherries one by one and spread the fresh cherries under the sun for natural drying, turning them irregularly to ensure even dehydration. Natural processed Yunnan coffee has more rich fermentation notes and rounded fruit flavors than washed coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee believes Yunnan coffee's flavor belongs to a neutral and balanced profile, meaning it has both acidity, sweetness, and bitterness. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's own roasted Yunnan coffees all use medium roast. Through cupping, FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Baoshan Peaberry daily brewer presents notes of nuts, herbs, sweet potatoes, melon, brown sugar, cream, plum, and caramel. The taste is balanced with a sweet aftertaste. Another FrontStreet Coffee 2013 natural Typica's cupping notes include: caramel, nuts, chocolate, fermentation notes, berries, black tea, and sugarcane. Medium-high body, clear taste, black tea aftertaste, rich and layered variations.

Brewing Suggestions for Yunnan Coffee

Before brewing, FrontStreet Coffee first confirms whether the coffee beans being used are fresh. If the coffee beans' roast date has exceeded more than a month, FrontStreet Coffee will not use them for serving. Since coffee beans have an optimal tasting period after roasting, the coffee's aroma accelerates its loss with storage time, and diminished flavors are difficult to restore during brewing. This is also why FrontStreet Coffee insists on only shipping freshly roasted coffee within 5 days—FrontStreet Coffee hopes every customer can enjoy the most complete tasting period of coffee beans.

Grind size and water temperature: Because Yunnan coffee's flavor profile is neutral and balanced, excessively high water temperature and too fine grind size can easily lead to over-extraction, releasing too many bitter macromolecular flavor compounds. Conversely, too low water temperature and too coarse grind size can lead to under-extraction, making the coffee tasteless. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee chooses medium water temperature and grind size, using 90°C hot water for extraction, with coffee powder fineness at 70% pass-through rate on Chinese standard #20 sieve, and store setting EK43s - setting 10.5.

Based on past brewing experience, FrontStreet Coffee recommends beginners use the three-pour method. The three-pour extraction method helps to more fully dissolve flavor compounds during extraction, increasing taste layers while avoiding over-extraction caused by overly long soaking times.

FrontStreet Coffee's Pour-over Parameters:

Filter: Hario V60
Dose: 15g
Water temperature: 90°C
Grind size: 75% pass-through rate on #20 sieve
Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15

Three-pour method: Use twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome for a 30-second bloom. Then use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside to outside until reaching 125g for the first segment. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the filter's height, then continue with the same fine stream to pour the third segment to 225g. Remove the filter when all coffee liquid has filtered through, taking about 2 minutes total.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat account: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473