Is Yunnan Small Bean Coffee an Arabica? Yunnan Coffee Varieties, Growing Regions, and Flavor Characteristics

Introduction to Yunnan Coffee

Yunnan coffee, also known as Yunnan small-grain coffee, refers to Arabica varieties. In the early days, Yunnan primarily cultivated pure Arabica—Typica. However, due to leaf rust damage, weak disease resistance, and low yields, Nestlé introduced Catimor to Yunnan in 1992. Because of its strong disease resistance and high yield, Catimor quickly replaced traditional varieties to become the mainstream of Yunnan's coffee industry. Therefore, what locals call Yunnan small-grain coffee has also changed from Typica to the now widely planted Catimor.

Yunnan coffee also has high-quality varieties such as Geisha, Typica, and Bourbon, which constitute a relatively small portion of Yunnan's coffee production. For example, FrontStreet Coffee began experimental planting in Lincang in 2013, planting the first batch of Typica seeds. It wasn't until the 2020-21 production season that a relatively good harvest was achieved, yielding only over 200 kilograms. In terms of flavor expression, it no longer has Mr. Han's described "devil's aftertaste" of Catimor, but instead presents flavors of nuts, brown sugar, and subtle fruit acidity.

Over 90% of coffee beans produced in Yunnan are Catimor. As a hybrid of Arabica and Robusta, Catimor inherits Robusta's strong disease resistance and high-yield characteristics. However, precisely because of its Robusta lineage, Catimor's flavor profile has always been criticized.

Catimor Variety

Catimor is a hybrid of Timor and Caturra. The emergence of the Catimor variety begins with leaf rust, a fatal disease in coffee trees that has no cure. Leaf rust first appeared in 1861 in the Victoria Lake coffee region of East Africa, then quickly spread to many parts of Southeast Asia, and eventually affected the entire southern, central, and western African coffee regions. To save the coffee industry, in 1959, Portugal's Coffee Leaf Rust Research Center (CIFC) developed Catimor with the research direction of disease resistance, high yield, and maintaining good flavor.

Catimor inherited the Robusta genes from Timor, enabling better resistance to coffee berry disease and coffee leaf rust, while also having stronger pest resistance and faster fruit maturation with high yields. This also leads to incomplete flavor development in coffee, and improper processing can easily result in negative tastes such as strong bitterness and grassy flavors.

Catimor is currently an important commercial variety. East Timor was colonized by Portugal for four hundred years, and the Portuguese had long been familiar with East Timor's coffee trees. In 1959, the Portuguese moved Brazil's Bourbon mutant Caturra to East Timon and crossbred it with Timor, which has Robusta lineage, successfully cultivating Catimor with super strong disease resistance and productivity. Between 1970 and 1990, leaf rust plagued coffee-producing countries worldwide. With the assistance of international organizations, various producing countries vigorously promoted Catimor to resist leaf rust and increase production. Although Catimor inherited Robusta's strong disease resistance advantage, it also inherited poor flavor genes. Additionally, early Catimor, while productive, required shade trees or would easily wither—truly strong on the outside but weak on the inside.

Typica Variety

Typica is the most classic high-quality Arabica variety, and many commercial improved varieties originate from it. It shows excellent flavor performance and is recognized as a specialty coffee variety, but with extremely low yields and susceptibility to rust disease, requiring more human management. Typica coffee originates from southeastern Ethiopia and Sudan and is the most widely cultivated coffee variety in the Western Hemisphere. The plants are relatively robust but not tolerant to strong light, with higher yields in Hawaii. Typica's top leaves are copper-colored, earning it the name red-topped coffee.

For decades, many botanists have researched Catimor variety improvement and cultivated dozens of new varieties. Colombia, as the largest harvesting country, cultivated sun-grown Catimor in 1982 and named it after the country "Colombia." Colombia claims that through multiple generations of crossbreeding, it differs from general Catimor and currently, along with Caturra, has become one of the country's two main varieties, long replacing the weak, disease-prone, low-yield Typica. However, COE competition winners are mostly Caturra, with few Robusta-blooded varieties winning awards. Colombia's large exports of commercial beans should be lower altitude or Caturra rather than traditional Typica, which is the main reason for increasingly poor flavor. However, Colombia cannot return to cultivating low-yield Typica.

Yunnan Coffee Growing Regions

The western and southern parts of Yunnan Province are located between 15° north latitude and the Tropic of Cancer, precisely within the growing geographical location of the coffee belt. At the same time, most areas also have the high altitude required for coffee cultivation, with terrain dominated by mountains and slopes, large undulations, fertile soil, sufficient sunlight, abundant rainfall, and large day-night temperature differences. Yunnan coffee is mainly grown in Lincang, Pu'er, Baoshan, Xishuangbanna, Wenshan, Dehong, and other areas.

Lincang

Lincang City has a subtropical low-latitude plateau mountain monsoon climate with complex terrain, making it a region with multiple climate types. Mainly influenced by the Indian Ocean warm and humid air currents and southwest monsoon, the distinction between four seasons is not obvious, but dry and rainy seasons are distinct, with abundant rainfall and long sunshine hours. The average annual sunshine exceeds 2000 hours, with a short frost period and some areas frost-free year-round. The立体气候 is obvious, with mountain areas having an average annual temperature of 13-15°C.

Due to Typica's low yield, coffee farmers growing Catimor are unwilling to replant Typica without income, while planting requires a lot of time and energy. FrontStreet Coffee believes this is also the main reason why Yunnan coffee beans still cannot be sold at high prices despite having special processing methods. Since few people are willing to do this, FrontStreet Coffee seized this opportunity in recent years, leading by example by establishing FrontStreet Coffee's estate in Lincang to plant Typica variety coffee. Thus, FrontStreet Coffee's 2013 natural processed Typica coffee was born and became a coffee loved by everyone.

Pu'er

Pu'er, known as the tea town, has a 150-year history of coffee cultivation. In the early 1990s, Pu'er City began to cultivate coffee development as an advantageous backbone industry for adjusting industrial structure and increasing farmers' income and wealth. Due to the influence of the subtropical monsoon climate, most areas here are frost-free year-round, with no severe cold in winter and no extreme heat in summer. Pu'er City has an average annual temperature of 15-20.3°C, with an annual frost-free period of over 315 days and annual rainfall of 1100-2780 millimeters.

Baoshan

Coffee cultivation in Baoshan began in the mid-1950s, with the first coffee seedling introduced from Southeast Asia by the late patriotic overseas Chinese Mr. Liang Jinshan. In recent years, with the expansion of international trade, the small-grain coffee from Lujiangba has become renowned. Baoshan has a low-latitude mountain subtropical monsoon climate. Due to its location in the low-latitude plateau with complex terrain and landforms, a立体气候 of "four seasons in one mountain, different weather within ten li" has formed.

Dehong

Dehong has no severe cold in winter, no extreme heat in summer, abundant rainfall, simultaneous rain and heat periods, dry and cold seasons, small annual temperature differences, large daily temperature differences, short frost periods, and few frosty days, providing good growth and overwintering conditions for coffee trees. The entire prefecture is close to the Tropic of Cancer, located at low latitude, influenced by the Indian Ocean southwest monsoon, belonging to the south subtropical monsoon climate.

Yunnan Coffee Bean Processing Methods

Yunnan has no four seasons, only dry and rainy seasons, and most coffee-growing regions have similar conditions, which is also the fundamental reason why some regions use natural processing methods. Entering June marks the beginning of the rainy season in the producing areas, with the next three to four months being rainy, which is the most favorable period for coffee cultivation. Only by planting seedlings at this time, with several months of moisture from rain, can they develop developed root systems to survive the first six-month dry season.

Since Yunnan's coffee harvest season usually occurs during the rainy season, making it impossible to widely adopt natural drying that takes three to four weeks, Yunnan coffee farmers adapt to local conditions. Based on the high temperature and rainy climate conditions, most use washed processing for raw coffee beans.

Washed Processing Method: Machine is used to remove the skin and pulp from harvested coffee cherries. The skinned coffee beans are placed in fermentation tanks for fermentation, using fermentation to decompose the mucilage layer. The fermented coffee beans are repeatedly washed with clean water to remove the decomposed mucilage. Finally, the coffee beans are dried in the sun for 1-2 weeks. The dried coffee beans can then be stored and transported to various places.

Washed coffee has the characteristics of being clean, stable, with low defect rates, and higher acidity, better presenting the coffee's inherent flavors. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan daily coffee beans are washed processed Baoshan small-grain coffee. FrontStreet Coffee's original intention in launching daily beans was to help everyone understand major producing regions by tasting the basic flavors of producing regions. FrontStreet Coffee has selected multiple classic producing regions, such as Yirgacheffe from Africa, Brazil and Colombia from the Americas, and Sumatra from Asia... mostly using washed processing methods to present the unique characteristics of each region.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Parameters for Yunnan Catimor

FrontStreet Coffee believes that Yunnan coffee should have both rich coffee aroma and certain acidity, therefore FrontStreet Coffee uses medium roast degree. Considering that Yunnan small-grain coffee tends toward a balanced taste, meaning not too high acidity and heavy bitterness, FrontStreet Coffee uses a V60 dripper with medium-fine grind size and medium water temperature for extraction.

FrontStreet Coffee uses Kono dripper - Water temperature: 88°C - Coffee amount: 15g - Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15 - Grind size: Medium-fine (75% pass-through rate with China standard #20 sieve)

FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yunnan Small-Grain Coffee Flavor: Herbal, nutty aroma, chocolate, caramel, black tea sensation.

FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Yunnan Catimor Coffee Flavor: Nuts, chocolate, spices, caramel, plum.

FrontStreet Coffee's 2013 Natural Typica Coffee Flavor: Heavy mouthfeel, prominent sweet and sour notes, with citrus and berry tones, a hint of fermented wine aroma, caramel-like sweetness, creamy aftertaste, and black tea sensation.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Recommendations

Regardless of what coffee you're brewing, to brew a delicious cup of coffee, you still need to pay attention to the freshness of the coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee has always believed that coffee bean freshness has a great relationship with coffee flavor, therefore, coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are all within 5 days of roasting time. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly roasted good coffee," ensuring that every customer who orders receives the freshest coffee when it arrives. The coffee's resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive it, it's precisely when the flavor is at its best.

For friends who need ground coffee, FrontStreet Coffee kindly reminds you: if coffee beans are ground in advance, there's no need for further resting, because during transportation, the pressure from carbon dioxide inside the package can also make the coffee flavor more rounded, so you can brew a cup immediately upon receiving the coffee powder. However, coffee powder needs to be brewed promptly, because after coffee powder comes into contact with air, it oxidizes relatively quickly, meaning the coffee's flavor will dissipate faster, and the coffee's flavor won't be as good. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends purchasing whole beans and grinding fresh before brewing to better taste the coffee's flavor.

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