How is Yunnan Green Coffee Bean Grading System Divided? What Powder-to-Water Ratio is Used for Pour-Over Yunnan Small-Bean Coffee?

Coffee enthusiasts have likely heard of Yunnan coffee to some extent. In the past, Yunnan's coffee was of poor quality and mostly used for instant coffee, which led to its consistently poor reputation. However, in recent years, Yunnan coffee has emerged like a dark horse, gradually appearing in the specialty coffee market.

When did China start growing coffee?

The beginning of Yunnan coffee's story can be traced back to 1904, when a French missionary brought coffee seeds from abroad to Yunnan and successfully planted the first coffee tree in a place called Zhukula. Little did he know that a hundred years later, coffee would become a highlight of Yunnan's plateau specialty agriculture.

The 1960s marked a period of further expansion in Yunnan's coffee cultivation. After the founding of New China in 1952, under the leadership of expert Ma Guojin from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, large-scale coffee cultivation was formally developed, with the produced coffee being supplied to the Soviet Union. During this period in 1937, patriotic overseas Chinese Mr. Liang Jinshan had brought back a batch of seeds from Myanmar to Baoshan, pioneering coffee cultivation in the Lujiangba area of Baoshan. At this time, Yunnan's varieties all belonged to Typica and the Bourbon variant, with the cultivation area reaching as much as 50,000 mu.

Later, Yunnan coffee suffered from global leaf rust disease, causing large-scale death of coffee trees and a significant reduction in cultivation area. By the 1980s during the Reform and Opening Up period, Yunnan coffee gradually entered the international market. In 1988, foreign companies such as Nestlé established branches in China, providing multi-faceted support for the development of Yunnan's coffee industry. They not only introduced high-yield, disease-resistant varieties such as Catimor but also promised to purchase Yunnan coffee beans as raw materials at the current US futures price. These measures further expanded Yunnan's coffee cultivation area and increased the enthusiasm of coffee farmers. At the same time, this established Catimor's position as a replacement for the ancient Typica variety, becoming the main variety of Yunnan coffee.

After the millennium, with the vigorous development of various industries in China and the continuous promotion of the specialty coffee concept domestically, Yunnan coffee also began to conduct more scientific selection, planting, harvesting, and processing work. Today, through various media information, we can understand that Yunnan coffee is continuously making progress on the path to specialization.

What are the characteristics of Yunnan small bean varieties?

Before the 1980s, the widely cultivated varieties in Yunnan were two ancient small bean varieties: Typica and Bourbon. The so-called small bean varieties refer to the smaller-sized Arabica varieties, in contrast to the medium-sized Robusta coffee beans from Hainan.

Typica offers rich and diverse flavors, presenting various fruit acidity and delicate texture, and is recognized as a high-quality variety. The world-renowned Blue Mountain coffee and Hawaiian Kona coffee both belong to the Typica variety. In appearance, Typica trees are tall and have good cold resistance, but their yield per plant is low, and their resistance is poor, making them extremely susceptible to leaf rust disease, coffee berry disease, and nematode disease. Therefore, they require more human management. Additionally, since the variety does not have much price advantage in market sales, many Yunnan coffee farmers choose to replace Typica with higher-yield varieties.

In 1995, the Yunnan provincial government formally included Yunnan coffee cultivation in the "18 Projects" of biological resources, which greatly encouraged farmers' enthusiasm for planting, and the cultivation area in villages rapidly expanded. In the same year, the Institute of Tropical Crops of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences introduced a new disease-resistant, high-yield coffee variety—Catimor—which began to be planted in Xinzhai Village of the Nujiang River Canyon in Yunnan.

Catimor 7963 is a hybrid variety developed by the Portuguese Tropical Research Institute (HCT) specifically for coffee leaf rust disease, with stable characteristics. This variety has characteristics such as compact tree shape, dwarfism, many branches, and short fruit nodes. It grows vigorously with extremely strong vitality. Its greatest features are amazing rust resistance and high yield capability. Therefore, it is deeply loved by Yunnan coffee farmers, and currently over 90% of coffee trees in Yunnan are Catimor.

What grading system does Yunnan coffee use?

Although Yunnan has been growing coffee for many years, overall it is not yet mature enough. The grading system is relatively chaotic and not well-developed. We commonly see Yunnan coffee classified according to multiple standards including sieve size, color, cleanliness, aroma, and moisture content.

Classified by sieve holes of 6.5, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0 millimeters into five grades:

Grade 1: 6.5 mm and above, full and complete grains

Grade 2: 6.0-6.4 mm, full, relatively uniform

Grade 3: 5.3-5.9 mm, relatively full, slightly lacking uniformity

Grade 4: 5.0-5.4 mm, with incomplete grains, complete grains account for more than 75%

Grade 5: Below 5.0 mm, with incomplete grains, complete grains account for more than 30%

Color: Lustrous, light blue, light green, and light white are good. Dark brown and dark orange are inferior:

Grade 1: Light blue, light green, light white, light yellow, uniform color

Grade 2: Light blue, light green, light white, light yellow, slightly inferior color

Grade 3: Light blue, light green, light white, light yellow, even more inferior color

Grade 4: Slightly yellow, small amount of brown

Grade 5: Variegated color

Cleanliness: Free from impurities or containing few impurities is good:

Grade 1: More than 70% with silver skin removed, no impurities

Grade 2: More than 65% with silver skin removed, no impurities

Grade 3: More than 60% with silver skin removed, no impurities

Aroma: Fermented deterioration, light red, brown indicates sourness. Sour odor or other peculiar smells are not good.

Moisture: Water content not exceeding 12%.

To maximize the interests of the majority of coffee farmers and coffee enterprises, and to further enhance Yunnan coffee's international market voice and competitiveness, Pu'er City established the Yunnan International Coffee Exchange (YCE). In 2019, YCE combined the systems of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) to plan a new grading system for traditionally washed Yunnan small-bean coffee. Coffee farmers all grade and quote according to this standard.

Does FrontStreet Coffee also have Yunnan small-bean coffee?

Of course, FrontStreet Coffee not only roasts Yunnan small-bean coffee but also personally grows small-bean coffee in Lincang, Yunnan. FrontStreet Coffee's idea of growing coffee came earlier than roasting. "Dazhen Coffee" was the predecessor of FrontStreet Coffee. At that time, FrontStreet Coffee grew coffee in a place called Dazhen in Guangdong. It was only after the Catimor seedlings grew to 20 centimeters that we understood the relationship and sequence of variety, altitude, and processing method in specialty coffee. After consulting extensive knowledge, FrontStreet Coffee came to Yunnan to find suitable land for cultivation. From site selection, variety selection, seedling cultivation, planting, harvesting, post-processing... countless trials and errors were made, from which we also summarized considerable experience and knowledge related to varieties, altitude, and processing methods.

Lincang, Yunnan is influenced by the warm and humid air currents from the Indian Ocean and southwest monsoon. The distinction between four seasons is not obvious, but dry and rainy seasons are distinct. There is abundant rainfall, long sunshine hours, short frost periods, and some areas are frost-free year-round. The three-dimensional climate is obvious, making it very suitable for Arabica coffee cultivation. FrontStreet Coffee specifically chose the most primitive Typica variety. Typica has elegant and pure flavors, but it is also notorious for low yield and poor resistance. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee also put considerable effort into cultivation management. After 5-6 years of cultivation, FrontStreet Coffee finally harvested the first batch of results in 2020 and produced it using natural processing methods, also naming it "FrontStreet Coffee 2013".

For this coffee bean, FrontStreet Coffee uses the natural drying method. Natural processing does not require too much equipment; it mainly needs to be dried evenly under continuous sunny sunlight. FrontStreet Coffee will arrange personnel to turn it regularly to avoid uneven heating of coffee cherries, which could lead to over-fermentation. When the coffee cherries dehydrate from bright red to dark purple and reach the target moisture content, they can be sent for hulling and roasting. FrontStreet Coffee's coffee cherries have also begun to ripen one after another this year. FrontStreet Coffee is speeding up picking and processing. We believe that soon everyone will be able to taste FrontStreet Coffee's new season Typica flavor again.

In addition to FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan natural Typica, FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) has also found a Catimor coffee bean from the Yunnan Baoshan producing area based on the flavor characteristics of the Yunnan region. As part of FrontStreet Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) signature daily bean series, this Yunnan small-bean coffee allows everyone to taste the flavor of the Yunnan region at the highest cost-performance ratio.

FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Small Bean Brewing Parameters

Filter: Hario V60

Dose: 15g

Water temperature: 90 degrees Celsius

Grind size: 75% pass rate through #20 sieve

Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15

Three-stage pouring: Use twice the amount of coffee in water to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and let it bloom for 30s. Then use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside to outside to 125g for the first stage. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the height of the filter, then continue with the same fine water stream to inject the third stage to 225g. Remove the filter when all the coffee liquid has finished filtering, with a total time of about 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan small bean daily coffee flavor: It has a strong nutty aroma, with herbal, chocolate, and caramel notes upon entry, and a light fruit acidity in the aftertaste. The overall taste is balanced with good clarity.

FrontStreet Coffee 2013 Natural Typica coffee flavor: The dry grounds present aromas of caramel, nuts, and citrus. At high temperatures, there are chocolate, fermented notes, and berries. As the temperature decreases, plum acidity emerges, with a sweet finish of black tea and sugarcane. It has medium to high body, clear texture, and rich, varied layers.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473