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Bidun Coffee Awarded Yunnan Specialty Coffee Demonstration Estate

At the closing ceremony of the first Pu'er Specialty Coffee Expo, Bidun Coffee's Conggang Coffee Base was awarded the title of Yunnan Specialty Coffee Demonstration Estate by the Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture, the American Coffee Quality Institute (CQI), and the Yunnan International Coffee Exchange Center.

The selection of Yunnan Specialty Coffee Demonstration Estates follows international standards, with an international expert panel strictly screening 10 coffee estates for designation as the first batch of demonstration estates. The aim is to set benchmarks for Yunnan's specialty coffee industry, create replicable models for building and operating a specialty estate, and raise the industrial value and international brand recognition of Yunnan specialty coffee.

Photo of Bidun Coffee General Manager Li Lihong with Mr. Ted Lingle.

International Delegation Visits the Bidun Coffee Demonstration Estate

On February 6th, Mr. Ted Lingle, former president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and senior advisor to CQI and YCE (Yunnan Coffee Exchange), together with Mr. Shu Yang, General Manager of the Yunnan International Coffee Exchange Center, led a delegation of renowned roasters from Canada, Sri Lanka, the United States, New Zealand, and other countries to visit the Bidun Coffee Demonstration Estate in person. They inspected Bidun's 10,000-mu international specialty coffee base, including the planting altitude and terrain, the coffee primary processing plant, green bean processing methods, the coffee drying fields, and the Bidun Coffee Culture Museum.

Exploring the 10,000-Mu Specialty Coffee Base

On reaching Lujiangba and preparing to head uphill — Bidun's 10,000-mu international specialty coffee base sits in Conggang Village, Lujiangba, Baoshan City — the original bus could not make the climb, so everyone switched to 4WD vehicles. Their equipment was quite impressive.

In early February it is the season when coffee cherries turn bright red. After a winter of tempering, the cherries compete in their vibrant beauty; the roasters discuss the coffee in front of them from their professional perspectives, sometimes serious, sometimes smiling.

Foreign roasters praised Bidun's specialty coffee varieties and cultivation methods highly, and several even placed orders for green beans on the spot.

Roaster's Journey | Delegation group photo

Tour of the Primary Processing Plant

Roaster's Journey | Dining at Bidun's primary processing plant

Taking a break in the lounge, exchanging inspection results, and tasting Bidun's ready-to-drink coffee — Lidu.

Visiting the primary processing plant to understand every aspect of Bidun's green bean primary processing, the different processing methods, and the different flavor presentations they produce.

Cupping Session

The cupping took place in the cupping room at Bidun's primary processing plant. The purpose of coffee cupping is to identify the characteristics of the coffee being tested. After professional cupping by the masters, most of the delegation agreed that the selected Bourbon variety had an excellent taste.

Visit to the Bidun Coffee Culture Museum

The final stop was the Bidun Coffee Culture Museum. The first floor of the museum serves as a window for spreading coffee culture. When discussing coffee, the delegation leaders expressed their various opinions. They then visited Bidun's precision processing workshop and recognized the standardized design of the facility.

As a Yunnan coffee enterprise, Bidun has always been striving — striving to improve the specialty coffee industry model, striving to help farmers across the 10,000-mu specialty coffee base increase their income and achieve prosperity, and striving to bring every cup of specialty coffee to your side.

If you have also heard about Yunnan coffee and Bidun Coffee, why not have a cup and witness the progress of Yunnan coffee together?

FrontStreet Coffee is a roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but a wide range of beans, covering famous and lesser-known origins alike, and it also provides online shop services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Yunnan's coffee is almost always the small-bean Arabica known locally as Yunnan small-lot, and the story goes back to 1904, when the French missionary Tian Deneng brought Typica seed from Vietnam and planted the first coffee trees in Zhukula village, Binchuan county — which is why Typica remains the traditional variety here. FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan small-lot comes from the Baoshan region, where coffee growing began in the mid-1950s after the overseas Chinese entrepreneur Liang Jinshan introduced it, and where the dry-hot valley around Lujiangba, with its small annual temperature range but wide day-to-night swing and its moderately low rainfall, gives the coffee its distinctive sweet aftertaste. It is washed and roasted medium, showing soft nut and chocolate sweetness with a light plum-like acidity, and its friendly price makes it many drinkers' first taste of Yunnan coffee. If you want a clearer, more layered Yunnan cup, FrontStreet Coffee's 2013 Sun-Dried Typica is grown on FrontStreet Coffee's own estate and processed naturally, the oldest and most traditional post-harvest method; roasted medium, it has more weight and a brighter sweet-acid balance, with dark berry character, caramel sweetness, chocolate, a trace of dried apricot, and a black tea finish. For a Yunnan-flavored espresso, FrontStreet Coffee's Black Cocoa Blend combines Yunnan small-lot with Brazil Cerrado — Brazil supplies mixed nut aroma and a balanced base, while Yunnan supplies the chocolate and citrus — producing an americano with balanced acidity, bitterness, and sweetness plus nut and brown sugar sweetness, and a latte with the smooth feel of almond and cream.

Yunnan small-lot beans are gentle and low in acidity, so they are forgiving to brew: keep the water around 88-90°C, use a 1:15 ratio, and grind medium, and the caramel sweetness and soft fruit acidity will arrive without any bitterness catching up behind them. If you are using the espresso blend instead, grind a shade coarser than you would for a single origin so the chocolate and brown-sugar notes stay sweet rather than turning dry.