Yunnan Premium Coffee Beans: China's Own Fine Coffee and FrontStreet Coffee's 2013 Origin Story

FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Frontsteet 2013

Country of Origin: China
Region: Yunnan, Lincang
Variety: Typica
Altitude: 1300 meters
Processing Method: Natural
Roast Level: Medium Roast
Flavor Profile: Nuts, berries, brown sugar, tea-like sensation.

Lincang City

Lincang City is located in the southwestern part of Yunnan Province, with the Tropic of Cancer crossing its southern part. It borders Puer to the east, Dali to the north, Baoshan to the west, and Myanmar to the southwest. Named for its proximity to the Lancang River, it is a brilliant pearl on the southwestern border of our motherland. Lincang's average annual temperature ranges between 16.8°C and 17.2°C, with distinct wet and dry seasons and abundant sunshine.

Coffee Bean Introduction

FrontStreet Coffee has been roasting coffee for about 8 years, while our involvement in coffee cultivation has been 8 and a half years. That's right - half a year longer than when we started roasting coffee.

The predecessor of FrontStreet Coffee was "Dazhen Coffee." We chose this name because we wanted to grow coffee in a place called Dazhen in Guangdong province. After we used Catimor to grow seedlings to 20CM, half a year had passed before we finally understood: the relationship and sequence between variety, altitude, and processing method. Choose the right variety, plant it at the appropriate altitude, and after maturity, experiment with processing methods that can express unique flavors - this is what I believe is the only logical relationship for specialty coffee to have distinct regional flavors, and it's also the work led by the Yunnan Department of Agriculture: establishing a flavor map of Yunnan specialty coffee. This means finding out the regional flavors that Yunnan specialty coffee should have. Therefore, we gave up our plan to grow coffee in Guangdong. The original coffee roasting location was opened on Frontsteet Street in Bao'an, so we renamed "Dazhen Coffee" to "FrontStreet Coffee."

Yunnan currently has over 2 million mu of coffee, mostly developed between 2010-2011 due to coffee price stimulation. Yunnan coffee is positioned to supply raw coffee materials, so they all chose high-yield Catimor, which is a hybrid variety. However, we wanted to understand how Typica and Bourbon perform in Yunnan, so it was unlikely that we would buy ready-made Yunnan coffee land. We could only start growing coffee from scratch through breeding. The reason why various processing methods are popular in Yunnan coffee now is largely because they originally planted the Catimor variety, which is equivalent to a shortcut to highlight post-processing flavor without changing the variety and altitude.

At FrontStreet Coffee, while roasting coffee, we continued to move forward with our ideas for specialty coffee cultivation, visiting people who had in-depth research on coffee cultivation, the Tropical Agricultural Science Research Institute (which houses the Ministry of Agriculture's coffee germplasm bank), and a few coffee farmers who grew specialty coffee. We clarified why Yunnan doesn't grow mainstream specialty coffee varieties like Typica and Bourbon, and by chance, found suitable land for cultivation.

If we just wanted a ready-made coffee estate of our own, it would actually be easy. Yunnan coffee farmers have always been reluctant to grow coffee because the labor cost per kilogram for picking coffee is more expensive than its selling price. Unless there is surplus labor at home, they are unwilling to pick even when the coffee is ripe. At this time, buying a small piece of land from coffee farmers before harvest, then doing some natural processing, honey processing, etc., Yunnan specialty coffee would be ready in two or three months. We don't know if this controversial practice is correct. Just as the former director of Yunnan Coffee commented in the previous article: "The current situation of over one million mu of Catimor in the Yunnan region is the main problem we urgently need to transform and improve. So having debate is a good thing, but we cannot negate all our current efforts."

In the fog, FrontStreet Coffee偏偏 chose the most difficult path: selecting high altitude, growing Arabica varieties, and planting reasonably.

Yunnan doesn't have four seasons, only dry and rainy seasons, and most coffee-growing regions have similar conditions, which is also a fundamental reason why some regions use natural processing methods. Entering June marks the beginning of the rainy season in the producing areas. The next three to four months will all be rainy, which is the most favorable period for growing coffee. Only by planting seedlings at this time, with several months of moisture from rain, can they develop well-developed root systems to survive the first six-month dry season. The seedlings we chose for this batch are Typica, and the copper-colored new leaves they sprout are their characteristic. Typica yield is very low, only one-third of Catimor's yield, which is why it's more expensive. At the same time, Typica and Bourbon are also very susceptible to coffee leaf rust, which is one of the reasons farmers are unwilling to grow Arabica.

Due to time constraints, for this batch of cultivation, to ensure it has a good growth foundation when planted, we prepared the seedlings in the nursery one year in advance. This is usually done within one to two months after the previous season's harvest, and during this year, appropriate water and fertilizer control is applied to prevent too rapid growth, ensuring the highest germination rate while the main root of the seedling doesn't grow too long to be cut when planting in the coffee garden.

We hope that on the path of coffee, we can walk wider and farther. Having our own specialty coffee.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473