Famous Yunnan Arabica Coffee Brands Recommendation: Which Authentic Yunnan Small Bean Coffee Origin Brands Taste Best

Yunnan Coffee: A Rising Star in Chinese Coffee Culture

In recent years, thanks to the efforts of many people, the quality of Yunnan coffee has continuously improved, earning considerable recognition and attracting many domestic fans of Yunnan coffee. For those who haven't tried Yunnan coffee before, you're surely curious about its flavor. FrontStreet Coffee suggests starting with this ultra-high-value Yunnan small bean daily coffee. It comes from the Baoshan region, uses washed processing methods, and presents the pure aromatic characteristics of Yunnan small coffee beans. The 100-gram packaging avoids waste from unfinished coffee.

Why Choose Small Beans from Baoshan Region?

Currently, Yunnan Province's coffee cultivation area has stabilized at around 1.8 million mu, with an annual output of about 139,000 tons, accounting for approximately 1.5% of global production. Premium commercial coffee beans (scoring above 75 points) make up 10%, while specialty coffee accounts for 5% (according to 2019 data). Yunnan has also developed into China's largest coffee cultivation area, trade distribution center, and export point. Coffee cultivation is distributed across 9 cities and 35 counties including Pu'er, Baoshan, Dehong, Lincang, Wenshan, and Xishuangbanna, with over 380,000 coffee farming households and a coffee-growing population of over 1.14 million people. Among these, Baoshan belongs to the first batch of regions that started growing coffee.

Since the 1950s, Baoshan introduced the first batch of coffee tree varieties to begin seedling cultivation. Today, Baoshan's Lujiang Dam has become the largest coffee cultivation base in the country, with Xinzhai Village hailed as "China's No. 1 Coffee Village." Here, coffee trees grow abundantly on the back mountains of every household, coffee beans dry in the courtyards, and the aroma of coffee wafts through the houses. Under the local year-round frost-free warm climate, coffee trees thrive in a moist and comfortable environment. The significant temperature difference between day and night at high altitudes slows the maturation of coffee fruits, allowing them to develop more flavor compounds.

Yunnan coffee trees are generally planted on mountains and slopes, arranged in a scattered pattern. The terrain is unsuitable for mechanical harvesting, so manual harvesting of mature coffee cherries is employed. Similar to most coffee-producing countries, Yunnan harvests one season each year, with the concentrated harvest period from November to March of the following year. Coffee cherries gradually mature and turn red in the mountains, and we can see busy farmers scattered across the mountains harvesting small coffee beans.

What Variety are Small Beans?

Yunnan small bean coffee is also known as "Arabica coffee" (Coffea arabica L.). In the 1950s, the main varieties in Baoshan, Yunnan, were Typica, Bourbon, and S288. Among these, the oldest is the Typica variety, known for its pure and elegant flavor, but with low yield and weak disease resistance, making it susceptible to disease and withering. Consequently, Yunnan introduced the Catimor variety, which can be densely planted and has strong disease resistance, becoming the most widely planted coffee variety in Yunnan today. Therefore, when we often say "Yunnan small beans," we're actually referring more to Yunnan's Catimor coffee beans.

Catimor is a hybrid of Caturra and Timor. Caturra is a natural mutation of the highly regarded Bourbon variety and often appears as a "regular guest" in various specialty coffee competitions. For example, among FrontStreet Coffee's house-roasted coffee beans, dozens of varieties use Caturra. Timor is a natural cross between Robusta and Arabica, discovered in the early 1900s on Timor Island in Southeast Asia. Robusta is notoriously unappealing in flavor, characterized by heavy bitterness and intensity, but possesses extremely high disease resistance, tolerance to cold and heat, and high yield. Therefore, Catimor also inherits some of these characteristics - higher survival rate, fruit-bearing rate, and shorter maturation period, naturally making it more favored by coffee farmers and producers.

Washed Processing vs. Natural Processing

With the technological development in Yunnan's growing regions, the market offers various Yunnan coffee beans processed using different post-harvest methods, providing many choices. The reason FrontStreet Coffee chose washed Yunnan small beans is that FrontStreet Coffee believes washed coffee beans have better cleanliness and can express the basic flavor profile of the region, which is also a natural processing method that FrontStreet Coffee particularly likes.

Most Yunnan coffee farmers face difficult conditions and do not have access to expensive processing equipment, so the vast majority of Yunnan coffee beans use natural processing methods, namely washed and natural processing. Yunnan has abundant freshwater resources and easily encounters rainy seasons during harvest time, making it more suitable for washed processing production. Washed processing is also currently the most common green bean processing method in Yunnan.

FrontStreet Coffee also offers a coffee bean "FrontStreet Coffee 2013" processed using natural drying methods, produced from FrontStreet Coffee's own estate in Lincang, Yunnan, selected from the elegant-flavored Typica variety, using natural sun-drying processing to enhance the coffee's sweetness. Every November, FrontStreet Coffee's planted coffee fruits also mature one after another. FrontStreet Coffee arranges workers to pick red coffee cherries one by one and spread the fresh coffee cherries evenly under the sun for natural drying, turning them periodically to ensure even dehydration and avoid negative over-fermentation flavors.

Flavor Characteristics of Yunnan Coffee

When FrontStreet Coffee discusses the flavor characteristics of Yunnan coffee, some describe it as chocolate, others say it's like sweet potatoes, and some friends think it resembles Sanhua plums. FrontStreet Coffee believes that the flavor of Yunnan small beans belongs to a neutral, balanced profile - meaning it has acidity, sweetness, and bitterness. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan coffee beans all use medium roasting to highlight the roasted aromas of chocolate and nuts while preserving some acidity. FrontStreet Coffee's cupping notes reveal that Yunnan small bean daily coffee presents nuts, herbal notes, brown sugar aroma, melon-like sweetness, and plum acidity, with a balanced mouthfeel. The natural-processed Typica shows chocolate, baked bread, fermented tropical fruit notes, and a black tea finish.

Pour-over Brewing Recommendations for Washed Yunnan Small Beans

FrontStreet Coffee uses corresponding parameters when brewing different coffee beans. For darker roasted coffee beans, such as Mandheling coffee and Brazilian coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses water temperatures of 87-88°C and medium-coarse grind. For lighter roasted coffee beans, such as Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Panama Geisha coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses high temperatures of 91-93°C and medium-fine grind to stimulate the aroma of high-altitude hard beans. Returning to today's Yunnan small bean coffee from FrontStreet Coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium water temperature and grind to highlight the balanced nature of Yunnan coffee.

Brewing Parameters:

• Filter: Hario V60
• Dose: 15g
• Water Temperature: 90°C
• Grind Size: 75% pass-through through #20 sieve
• Water-to-Coffee Ratio: 1:15
• Three-Pour Method: Use twice the amount of water as coffee grounds to wet the bed, forming a dome and bloom for 30s. Then use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside out to 125g, wait until the bed drops to half the filter cup level, continue with the same fine water stream for the third pour to 225g, until all coffee liquid has filtered through, remove the filter cup - time approximately 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Small Bean Daily Coffee Flavor:

It has a strong nutty aroma when smelled, with herbal, chocolate, and caramel notes when tasted. The finish carries a light fruit acidity, with an overall balanced mouthfeel and excellent cleanliness.

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style)

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473