The Three Famous Coffee Varieties of Yunnan and a Flavor Profile of Yunnan's Most Renowned Typica Coffee Beans

Today, the vast majority of coffee grown in Yunnan is of the Catimor variety. Catimor is a hybrid of Timor and Caturra, containing 25% Robusta genes. If not processed properly, its flavor profile is not as clean as pure Arabica beans, and the aftertaste tends to carry impurities. Are there other varieties in Yunnan? Of course, the "FrontStreet Coffee 2013" on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list is selected from Typica, which is widely recognized as a premium variety.

What are the characteristics of the Typica variety?

Typica is one of the oldest native varieties from Ethiopia, discovered between the 15th and 16th centuries. The characteristics of Typica include taller coffee trees, bronze-colored leaves at the top, and coffee beans that are larger, elongated, and pointed at both ends, somewhat resembling eggs. Typica coffee often has citrus acidity with a sweet aftertaste and is praised by many as an elegant and clean coffee bean. Unfortunately, due to its low yield and poor resistance to leaf rust, it has gradually been replaced by farmers with other more robust varieties. The same situation exists in Yunnan, China.

Before the 1960s of the last century, Yunnan primarily cultivated Arabica varieties belonging to Typica and Bourbon. Starting from the 1970s and 1980s, major coffee-producing regions worldwide suffered from leaf rust damage, and coffee growers everywhere began seeking solutions to this problem. In 1990, driven by the foreign-invested company Nestlé, Yunnan introduced the Catimor variety from Central and South America, which has better disease resistance and higher yields, to replace the "unprofitable" Typica coffee trees. This also "set the stage" for Catimor to become the dominant variety in Yunnan today.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the Typica variety evolves new characteristics to adapt to different planting environments and gradually develops unique elegant flavors. For example, world-famous coffees such as Jamaican Blue Mountain and Hawaiian Kona are all varieties derived from Typica mutations.

FrontStreet Coffee 2013

Years ago, while exploring coffee knowledge, FrontStreet Coffee developed the idea of growing their own coffee. In 2013, they traveled to Lincang, Yunnan, to begin their journey of cultivating coffee trees. From site selection, variety selection, seedling cultivation, planting, harvesting, processing, to roasting, everything was handled by FrontStreet Coffee's team, from which they gained considerable experience and knowledge regarding varieties, altitude, and processing methods. FrontStreet Coffee specifically chose the most original Typica variety. Typica is known for its elegant and pure flavor, but it's also notorious for low yield and poor resistance. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee put significant effort into cultivation and management. After several years of cultivation, FrontStreet Coffee finally harvested their first batch in 2020, processed using the natural method, and named it "FrontStreet Coffee 2013."

Why use natural processing?

Each year when winter arrives in November, the coffee fruits grown by FrontStreet Coffee also ripen successively. FrontStreet Coffee arranges for workers to pick each red coffee cherry individually and spread the fresh coffee fruits under the sun for natural drying. They turn them periodically to ensure even dehydration and avoid the negative flavors of over-fermentation. FrontStreet Coffee believes that naturally processed coffee has higher sweetness and develops more berry-like flavor notes with a rounder aftertaste.

When FrontStreet Coffee discusses the flavor characteristics of Yunnan coffee with customers, some describe it as chocolate, some say it's like sweet potatoes, and others find it similar to Sanhua plums. FrontStreet Coffee believes that Yunnan coffee's flavor profile is balanced and harmonious, meaning it has acidity, sweetness, and bitterness. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium roast for all their Yunnan coffee to highlight the chocolate and nutty roasted aroma while preserving some acidity.

From cupping, FrontStreet Coffee tasted this Yunnan natural Typica presenting notes of chocolate, brown sugar, plum, fermented tropical fruits, and a black tea aftertaste. The overall profile is quite clean with rich layers.

How to brew Yunnan Typica coffee for the best taste?

To highlight the balanced taste of Yunnan Typica, FrontStreet Coffee uses brewing parameters between dark and light roasts, meaning medium water temperature and medium grind size.

FrontStreet Coffee's pour-over parameters:

Filter: Hario V60
Coffee amount: 15g
Water temperature: 90°C
Grind size: 75% pass-through rate on a #20 sieve
Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15

Filter:

FrontStreet Coffee believes Yunnan coffee should present rich aromas and diverse flavor layers. The baristas at FrontStreet Coffee use a plastic V60 dripper. The V60 dripper has ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large circular hole at the center, which accelerates the flow rate of water. The spiral-shaped air exhaust design extends the water flow path, increasing the contact time between coffee grounds and hot water. Each water stream converges along the grooves to the center point of the dripper, concentrating the pressure on the coffee grounds and resulting in coffee with richer layers.

Grind size and water temperature:

Because Yunnan coffee's flavor attributes are balanced and harmonious, excessively high water temperature and too fine a grind size can easily lead to over-extraction, releasing too many bitter, large molecular flavor compounds. Conversely, too low water temperature and too coarse a grind size result in under-extraction, making the coffee taste weak. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee chooses medium water temperature and grind size, extracting with 90°C hot water, with the coffee grounds having a 70% pass-through rate on a Chinese standard #20 sieve, equivalent to EK43s setting 10.5 in their stores.

Three-stage pouring:

Wet the coffee bed with twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds, forming a dome for a 30-second bloom. Then, using a small water stream, pour in a circular motion from inside to out until reaching 125g, then pause. Wait for the coffee bed to drop to half the height of the dripper, then continue with the same fine water stream for the third stage until reaching 225g. Remove the dripper once all the coffee liquid has filtered through, with a total time of approximately 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee 2013 Natural Typica Coffee Flavor: The dry grounds present aromas of caramel, nuts, and citrus. At high temperatures, it exhibits chocolate, fermented notes, and berries. As the temperature decreases, plum acidity emerges with a black tea and sugarcane sweet aftertaste. Medium to high body, clear mouthfeel, rich and varied layers.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on WeChat (ID: 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