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In recent years, Yunnan coffee has been increasingly mentioned by coffee enthusiasts, as people begin to explore and understand the "Flavor of Yunnan." As coffee produced in our own country, FrontStreet Coffee hopes everyone can also experience "domestic coffee," thus including Yunnan Xiao Li as one of the small-packaged daily coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee's daily selection beans feature 7 major classic origins, covering multiple representative regions and varieties, using natural processing methods commonly employed in these origins to present their unique flavor profiles. FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan daily beans are selected from the Baoshan region, where "Xiao Li Coffee" first became famous, and undergo washed processing.

The Terroir and Climate of Baoshan Region

Baoshan is one of Yunnan's earliest coffee-producing regions. Lujiang Basin hosts the nation's largest coffee plantation base and Xinzhai Village, known as "China's No. 1 Coffee Village," where every household's mountains are covered with coffee trees, courtyards are filled with drying coffee beans, and homes are filled with the aroma of coffee. Under the local year-round frost-free warm climate, coffee trees thrive in a nourishing and comfortable environment. Particularly in the Lujiang Basin area, the unique dry-hot valley climate maintains minimal annual temperature variation but significant day-night temperature differences, which delays the maturation of coffee cherries, allowing them to develop more flavor compounds. Fertile soil combined with reasonably low rainfall provides ample irrigation for crops. This excellent mountain and water environment results in coffee beans with less pulp and a clean, sweet flavor.

Yunnan coffee trees are generally planted on mountains and slopes, arranged in terraced layers. This terrain is unsuitable for mechanical harvesting, so all harvesting is done manually. Similar to most coffee-producing countries, Yunnan harvests one season each year during winter, with the concentrated harvesting period from November to March of the following year. Coffee cherries ripen and turn red successively in the mountains, and we can see busy farming figures appearing on the mountains, harvesting Xiao Li coffee beans in an organized pattern.

What is "Xiao Li"?

"Xiao Li" refers to the smaller-sized Arabica varieties among coffee beans, in contrast to Hainan's medium-sized Robusta coffee beans. Yunnan initially introduced and planted two pure Arabica species: Typica and Bourbon. The ancient Typica is recognized as a high-quality variety. The famous Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee belongs to the Typica species, featuring rich aroma and delicate, diverse flavors, but with extremely low yield and susceptibility to rust disease, requiring more human management. After all, coffee is a crop that Yunnan farmers rely on for their livelihood. If yields are too low to meet income needs, it becomes difficult to maintain cultivation, so most Yunnan farmers choose to switch to higher-yield varieties: Catimor.

Although Catimor is classified as an Arabica species, genetically it carries 25% Robusta genes. Robusta itself contains higher chlorogenic acid, is less susceptible to pests and climate impacts, is generally grown in low-altitude environments, and has high yields with rapid fruit maturation. The "picky" Arabica species has weaker plant disease resistance and relatively low single-plant yield. High-altitude environments create significant day-night temperature differences, delaying the maturation of coffee cherries and allowing them to absorb more nutrients, developing richer aromas. The microclimates of various coffee regions provide diverse growing conditions for Arabica, forming unique flavor profiles.

Catimor inherits Robusta characteristics, with strong disease resistance and high-yield features. After roasting, the coffee beans carry rich oils while also possessing the "devil's flavor" of Robusta beans. In cupping, its flavor performance often falls short of pure Arabica varieties at the same altitude, such as Caturra. Additionally, Catimor's rust resistance gradually diminishes after 20-30 years. For Yunnan to improve overall coffee quality, gradual variety replacement is necessary. In recent years, many new varieties have also appeared in Yunnan, such as the world-famous Geisha. I believe that in a few years, we will see more high-quality coffee varieties produced from Yunnan.

What Processing Method is Used for Yunnan Xiao Li?

Some friends, after tasting Yunnan coffee beans processed with special methods, find the aroma particularly prominent and believe this represents the flavor of Yunnan coffee. In reality, most Yunnan coffee farmers face difficult conditions and lack expensive processing equipment, so the vast majority of Yunnan coffee beans can only use natural processing methods, namely washed and natural processing. While novel post-processing methods indeed add significant aroma to coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee believes that to taste the most original flavor of Yunnan coffee, the washed process not only reduces defect rates but also produces more stable quality Yunnan coffee. In terms of flavor, it not only reduces the earthy impurities in Yunnan coffee but also improves the overall cleanliness of the taste.

FrontStreet Coffee also has a quite popular coffee bean "FrontStreet 2013." As the name suggests, I believe you've already guessed it's an exclusive FrontStreet Coffee product. Produced from FrontStreet Coffee's own manor in Lincang, Yunnan, selected from the elegant-flavored Typica variety, using natural sun-drying processing to enhance the coffee's sweetness. Every November, the coffee fruits planted by FrontStreet Coffee also ripen successively. FrontStreet Coffee arranges workers to pick red coffee cherries one by one, then spread the fresh coffee cherries under the sun for natural drying, turning them irregularly to ensure even dehydration and avoid negative over-fermentation flavors. Until the coffee beans dehydrate to a purplish-red color, reaching the target moisture content, they are sent for hulling and roasting.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Xiao Li Coffee is Medium Roasted

FrontStreet Coffee believes that Yunnan Xiao Li's flavor belongs to a neutral, balanced profile - meaning it has acidity, sweetness, and bitterness. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's in-house roasted Yunnan coffee all uses medium roasting to highlight the roasted aromas of chocolate and nuts while preserving some acidity.

Cupping Flavors

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Xiao Li Daily Beans: Nuts, herbal notes, sweet potato, melon, brown sugar, cream, plum, caramel. Balanced mouthfeel with a clean, sweet aftertaste.

FrontStreet 2013 Natural Typica Cupping: Caramel, nuts, chocolate, fermentation notes, berries, black tea, sugarcane. Medium-high body with clean mouthfeel, black tea aftertaste, rich and varied layers.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Suggestions

Pour-over black coffee is the daily extraction method at FrontStreet Coffee stores and also a simple method that many coffee enthusiasts can perform at home. Below, FrontStreet Coffee uses the store's standard method to brew a cup of in-house roasted Yunnan Xiao Li daily beans. FrontStreet Coffee considers that Yunnan Xiao Li coffee tends toward a balanced taste - meaning not too high acidity and not heavy bitterness. Therefore, a V60 dripper is used with medium-fine grind size and medium water temperature for extraction.

FrontStreet Coffee uses corresponding parameters for brewing different coffee beans. For darker roasted coffee beans, such as Mandheling coffee and Brazilian coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses water temperature 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 the brewing of FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Xiao Li coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium water temperature and grind to highlight the neutral, balanced mouthfeel.

Brewing Parameters:

Dripper: Hario V60
Dose: 15g
Water Temperature: 90°C
Grind Size: 75% pass-through rate on #20 sieve
Water-to-Coffee Ratio: 1:15
Three-Stage Pouring: Use twice the weight of coffee grounds in water to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and bloom for 30s. Then use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside to outside until reaching 125g, pausing until the coffee bed drops to half the dripper's height. Continue with the same fine stream to pour the third stage to 225g, until all coffee liquid filters through, then remove the dripper. Total time approximately 2 minutes.

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's private WeChat account (FrontStreet Coffee), 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