Yunnan Pu'er Coffee Region | Aini Estate: Geisha, Caturra, Catuai, Catimor, and Villar Sarzi Varieties

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Yunnan Pu'er Coffee Region | Growing Environment of Aini Manor's Geisha, Catuai, Catimor, Catim, and Villasarchi Varieties?

Aini Group has been rooted in the Pu'er coffee region for nearly 30 years. At this coffee expo, Aini Manor showcased their successfully cultivated Geisha, Villasarchi, Catuai, Catimor, and Regina varieties after six years of trial planting, along with innovative products such as automatic coffee vending machines and coffee bean chocolates, attracting attention from domestic and international merchants. Particularly, the Geisha and Villasarchi varieties were favored by roasters from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Kunming, who made sample reservations at the event. Aini Coffee is a key Chinese coffee national brand developed by Aini Group, integrating coffee cultivation, processing, research and development, marketing, and coffee shop chains. Focused on the Yunnan coffee industry for nearly 30 years, Aini Coffee has been committed to providing high-quality Yunnan coffee to the world.

As the bustling Pu'er city area recedes into layers of mountain forests, the bus drives onto winding mountain roads. At some point, the air inside the vehicle becomes fresh and clean. Before you know it, you're in the open valley of the Manlao River, a tributary of the Lancang River. Here lies the renowned Aini Manor World Coffee Expo Garden, where 33 premium coffee varieties have taken root and flourished. This not only lays a solid foundation for the long-term development of Pu'er's coffee industry but also gives rise to the beautiful vision of sharing Yunnan coffee globally.

Aini Manor is located in Manzhongtian Village, Yixiang Town, Simao District, Pu'er City, with a total area of approximately 30,000 mu. Its latitude is similar to that of Jamaica's Blue Mountain region. This blessed land possesses unique geographical and climatic conditions, including an average temperature of 20°Celsius, well-drained soil, and other natural ecological environments that belong to the golden zone suitable for coffee cultivation. With an average altitude of 1500 meters, coffee in high-altitude regions has a longer growth cycle, accumulating rich nutrients, flavors, and excellent taste quality. Coffee is primarily planted on the shady side of mountains with short average sunshine hours, creating the best growing environment for shade-loving plants like coffee. Organic fertilizers are used throughout the entire process, with the integrated highland pastures providing organic fertilizers for Aini Manor's coffee.

Pu'er's coffee cultivation area covers 789,000 mu, with an annual coffee bean production of 58,600 tons. There are over 75,000 coffee farming households involving more than 300,000 people, and 182 farmer coffee professional cooperatives. Mr. Lu Ping, Deputy Secretary of the Pu'er Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, stated that hosting this coffee expo is an important measure to promote targeted poverty alleviation through commerce, build a platform for coffee quality and brand communication, a coffee trading service platform, and an information platform for industry policy formulation. It implements the integrated development strategy of "going out" and "bringing in" for the coffee industry, which will have a positive impact on the development of China's coffee industry.

As Yunnan's coffee regions accelerate their pursuit of high-quality and international standards, the Yunnan International Coffee Exchange Center and the Coffee Quality Association officially launched the Yunnan Specialty Coffee Demonstration Manor Project in 2017. According to international standards, an international expert evaluation team strictly selected 10 coffee manors to be designated as the first batch of Yunnan Specialty Coffee Demonstration Manors. The purpose is to establish benchmarks for Yunnan's specialty coffee industry, create replicable models for specialty manor construction and operation, and enhance the industrial value and international brand of Yunnan specialty coffee.

"Management has become more refined, with excellent talents trained annually. Technicians from various fields guide coffee farmers in harvesting, depulping, and post-processing operations," said Manor Director Dong Shuxiang. Aini Manor operates on a household basis, requiring contracted coffee farmers to manage cultivation and harvesting quality. Currently, 121 households work for Aini, with technicians guiding cultivation technical details, including ensuring coffee seedlings are "pinned straight" with evenly distributed roots in the soil, never slanted, to guarantee robust growth and healthy fruiting of coffee trees. Coffee farmers are busy manually harvesting red coffee cherries, while several tractors and pickup trucks are busy transporting freshly harvested coffee cherries to the primary processing plant. On the drying grounds, coffee workers continuously turn the coffee beans to ensure adequate sunlight exposure.

Aini Manor's main market coffee products include Catimor washed beans, Catimor honey-processed beans, and five specialty coffee varieties: Geisha, Villasarchi, Catuai, Catimor, and Regina. Through Starbucks C.P. certification, Aini Coffee Manor's product quality matches advanced international industry standards. They select raw coffee beans above 17 mesh as raw materials and ensure consumers enjoy fresh, high-quality freshly ground coffee through standardized drip coffee bag production lines and baking deep-processing production lines.

Aini Manor, under Aini Group, was established in 1993 and adheres to "green circular economic development," pioneering a development model of planting coffee in primary rainforests. Their diligent efforts were recognized, and starting in 2011, with assistance from Starbucks and the Yunnan provincial government, they introduced 33 premium coffee varieties from global coffee-producing regions, including Geisha, Bourbon, Catimor, Catuai, Typica, Villasarchi, and Regina, establishing the World Coffee Expo Garden. This project received project establishment and support from the International Cooperation Department of China's Ministry of Science and Technology, while the Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture also provided strong support. The Yunnan Coffee Seed Resource Gene Bank successfully raised seedlings in 2012, was transplanted in June 2013, and fully entered mass production by 2015.

In 2012, the Geisha variety arrived in Yunnan, China at Aini Manor from Panama. After nearly five years of cultivation and nurturing, Geisha grown in this blessed land of Aini Manor produces mature, stable quality raw beans, showing good adaptability to the local climate and soil, with rust resistance, high yield, and strong cold resistance. Its performance in cup quality is particularly outstanding. This means that high-quality Geisha varieties can also be produced in Yunnan, China. Geisha, regarded as the top of the top, the cream of the crop in the coffee beverage world, with seeds from Panama, has shown good adaptability to Aini Manor's environment, with rust resistance, high yield, and strong cold resistance. After nearly 5 years of cultivation and exploration of primary processing techniques, the raw bean quality has become mature and stable. In January 2016, Aini Manor sent samples of 33 new coffee varieties including Geisha to the United States for cupping by Ted Lingle, a giant in the global coffee world, former president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), and one of the founders of the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI). The cupping scores for the top five varieties were 84.25, 84.5, 84.5, 85.5, and 87 points, with Geisha being the highest-scoring variety.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing Method:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 88°C

Grind Size: Small Fuji grind level 4

Brewing Technique: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, using 15g of coffee. First pour 25g of water for a 25-second bloom. Second pour to 120g, then pause. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before continuing to pour. Slowly pour until reaching 225g total water, with an extraction time of approximately 2:00.

Analysis: Using a three-stage brewing method to clearly define the front, middle, and back flavor profiles of the coffee. Because the V60 has many ribs and drains quickly, pausing during pouring can extend the extraction time.

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