How are Aini Estate Coffee Beans? What Varieties Does Aini Estate Coffee Have? Introduction to Aini Estate Coffee

Aini Estate Coffee: Nearly 30 Years of Dedication to Yunnan Coffee

Aini Estate Coffee has focused on the Yunnan coffee industry for nearly 30 years. Since establishing a partnership with Starbucks in 2011 and founding the Starbucks Aini Yunnan Coffee Joint Venture Company, the two parties have not only cooperated commercially but have also worked together to improve the cultivation standards, variety development, and selection of Yunnan coffee.

Starting in 2011, with the help of Starbucks and the Yunnan provincial government, the Aini Group introduced 33 premium coffee varieties from major coffee-producing regions around the world to Aini Estate, including Gesha, Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai, Typica, Villa Sarchi, and Regina. They established the World Coffee Exposition Garden, a project that received approval and support from the International Cooperation Department of China's Ministry of Science and Technology as well as strong support from the Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture. Successful seedling cultivation was achieved in 2012, transplantation took place in June 2013, and full production was reached by 2015.

Autumn: The Season of Harvest

Following the Gesha variety, we now welcome four premium Aini Estate Yunnan Reserve coffee beans: Catuai, Villa Sarchi, Caturra, and Regina.

Coffee Varieties with Rich History

Coffee varieties can create a cup of precious and rare coffee. The four most common Arabica coffee varieties are Bourbon, Typica, Caturra, and Catuai.

Yunnan's Century-Old Coffee Legacy

Since 1892, when the French missionary Alfred Tietje spread the first coffee seeds on the land of Yunnan, coffee cultivation in Yunnan has spanned over a hundred years.

Today, in the mountains of Pu'er, Yunnan, thousands of miles from China's first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, a group of coffee farmers works diligently year-round.

After nearly five years of cultivation, these four new varieties have gone through dozens of complex processes, including planting, harvesting, depulping, demucilaging, hulling, and roasting.

Now they meet everyone in new packaging.

Catuai

Flavor Description:
Upward aroma, refreshing fruit acidity,
slightly flavored with brown sugar, apple, and pineapple,
good body,
excellent sweetness, aftertaste, and balance.

Flavor Description:
Slight fruit acidity, good body, with nut and chocolate flavors.

Villa Sarchi

Flavor Description:
Dry aroma with toasted bread fragrance, refreshing and pleasant fruit acidity, berry fruit flavors, excellent sweetness.

Caturra

Regina

Flavor Description:
Refreshing fruit acidity, slightly floral, with apple and caramel flavors, excellent body and sweetness.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Among the varieties Aini Estate brought in, Gesha is the one that changed coffee history. Panama became the variety's breakthrough stage: its high altitude, microclimate, and soil produced an intoxicating profile that was discovered by the owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda in 2003 and entered in the Best of Panama competition, where it stunned the judges and broke the BOP record with an average cupping score of 94.6. That is how Geisha became a champion variety overnight. If you want to taste that classic Panama Geisha, FrontStreet Coffee's Esmeralda Red Label and Green Label are the top-tier options. The Red Label, formally Esmeralda Special, is grown at 1,600-1,800 meters, and every lot must cup above 90 points and carries its own number, with each lot coming from a single small plot; the Green Label, originally Private Collection, blends several plots to express Esmeralda's signature high-altitude Geisha character at a friendlier price.

Newcomers curious about the famous Geisha profile can start with FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete Geisha, an entry-level Panama Geisha that offers the classic mandarin-honey notes, oolong tea body, and delicate fruit acidity at an accessible price. Geisha is a medium-light roasted floral-and-fruit type and, because the beans are hard, they tend to sink and clog the dripper, so FrontStreet Coffee suggests grinding to a 78% pass rate through a No. 20 standard sieve (about fine sugar) and brewing at 91°C with 15g of coffee, a V60, and a 1:16 ratio using a three-stage pour that finishes in about 2:10 to 2:20.