Specialty Coffee Yunnan Small Bean Pour-Over Coffee Flavor Characteristics Yunnan Pu'er Menglian Coffee Estate

Yunnan Small-Bean Coffee: Pour-Over Flavor Characteristics

FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Coffee belongs to the small-bean coffee variety.

Thanks to its unique geography and climate, FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Coffee has developed a distinctive flavor: rich without bitterness, fragrant without intensity, with a hint of fruitiness. World-class coffee experts have judged it among the finest coffees anywhere.

Its cultivation techniques and yield per unit area are also world-class. Coffee is rich in protein, fat, sucrose, starch, caffeine, and other substances. Brewed as a beverage, it offers a rich aroma, delightful taste, and abundant nutrition, making it one of the world's three great beverages alongside tea and cocoa, and occupying the top position.

Yunnan Coffee Characteristics

Yunnan coffee is a variant of Arabica that developed through long-term cultivation and domestication. It is generally known as Yunnan small-bean coffee: an evergreen small shrub with smaller kernels, thicker skin, sweet pulp, and a fragrant product. With lower caffeine content it is also called light coffee, and it is a major cultivated variety worldwide.

The Excellence of Arabica

Arabica is the highest-quality coffee variety and is often the mainstay of specialty coffee, thanks to its gentle, elegant flavor and charming, rounded aroma.

Arabica, however, has demanding growing conditions. It requires high-altitude areas and develops relatively slowly.

China's Premium Growing Region

In China there exists just such a high-quality, rare Arabica growing area: Pu'er City, Yunnan Province.

In the 2018 Yunnan Green Bean Competition, two natural processed green beans from Menglian County, Pu'er City, scored 85.26 and 84.93, taking first and second place. Notably, the top three winners of 2017 came from the same coffee-growing region.

Ideal Growing Conditions

This land, renowned for premium coffee, possesses exceptional natural conditions: high altitude ranging from 1,000 to 1,600 meters, abundant sunlight, plentiful annual rainfall, ideal temperatures, a wide day-night temperature difference, and appropriate humidity. These factors lay the foundation for the coffee's berry-like enticing aroma, citrus-like bright acidity, and caramel-like rich sweetness.

This is the specialty-coffee paradise countless farmers dream of.

A Rich Heritage

Yunnan's coffee cultivation has a history of more than thirty years. It is through generations of coffee professionals continuously optimizing varieties, improving harvest methods, and refining processing techniques that today's considerable achievements have become possible.

Menglian Xingang Coffee Estate

Menglian Xingang Coffee Estate sits at 22 degrees north latitude at an altitude of 1,600m, making it a high-quality coffee cultivation and processing estate.

The estate's coffee variety is Catimor. The 2018 production season cupping scores were: washed coffee 83.16 points, natural processed coffee 84.25 points.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

For an entry into Chinese Arabica, FrontStreet's Yunnan small beans are the first choice. From the Baoshan region, they are washed and medium roasted, emphasizing a caramel quality while retaining some acidity, so the region's terroir comes through clearly. Washing removes the pectin layer by fermenting and rinsing before drying, letting the coffee show the flavor tones unique to Yunnan.

If you want a clearer Yunnan flavor, try FrontStreet's 2013 Yunnan Sundried Typica, from FrontStreet's own estate. Typica is one of the oldest and purest Arabica varieties, and FrontStreet uses the most traditional post-harvest method, sun-drying. The result is a heavier body with more pronounced sweet-sour balance, citrus and berry tones, a hint of fermented wine, caramel sweetness, and a creamy finish.

And to taste Yunnan in an espresso, FrontStreet's Black Cocoa Blend combines Yunnan small beans with Brazil Cerrado: the Brazilian coffee supplies the mixed-nut aroma and balanced body, while the Yunnan small beans carry the chocolate and citrus notes. Pulled as an Americano it is balanced in sweet, sour, and bitter with nut and brown sugar sweetness, and as a latte it is smooth with almond and cream. It is an excellent choice for beginners.