Introduction to Yunnan Small Bean Coffee Current Status Flavor Description and Characteristics of Yunnan Typica Coffee

In recent years, Yunnan coffee beans have gained significant popularity, with many customers inquiring about the current state of Yunnan coffee.

Understanding Yunnan's Catimor Varieties

In earlier years, Yunnan beans were often criticized for being wild, earthy, and having mixed flavors... The primary reason was that the coffee variety planted in Yunnan was Catimor. Catimor is a hybrid of Caturra and Timor, thus carrying 1/4 of Robusta's genetic makeup. In his book "Specialty Coffee Studies," Mr. Hnuaizong described Catimor as having a "devil's aftertaste" characteristic of robusta beans, becoming synonymous with quantity over quality.

Yunnan's Catimor varieties mainly include CIFC7963, P series, T5175, and T8667, all of which are strains of Catimor.

Historical Development of Yunnan Coffee

In 1988, Nestlé supported the development of Yunnan's coffee agriculture by introducing Catimor 7963 from the Coffee Rust Research Center (CIFC) in Portugal. It was cultivated at the Dehong Tropical Agricultural Science Research Institute and initially trial-planted in Hainan, Lushui Dam in Baoshan, and Ruili.

In 1991, Nestlé introduced Catimor P1, P2, P3, and P4 from CIFC for trial planting, where P stands for "Population." Among these, P4 had the highest yield. Subsequently, in 1994, the P series began to be promoted and planted in Pu'er City, with P4 being the majority. Later, through expert investigations, it was discovered that Catimor P1, P2, P3, and P4 were actually 7960, 7961, 7962, and 7963 respectively.

T5175 and T8667 were introduced by Nestlé from Central America in 1994. These two strains were first trial-planted in Pu'er, both with yields lower than 7963.

Quality Challenges and Recent Improvements

Thanks to Nestlé's significant efforts in developing Yunnan's coffee agriculture, 99% of Yunnan's coffee is of the Catimor variety, which we commonly refer to as Yunnan small beans. These coffee beans were originally purchased by Nestlé for use as raw material in instant coffee production, where flavor requirements were not particularly high. Consequently, when discussing coffee flavor profiles, Yunnan coffee was characterized by low acidity, nuts, cocoa, and earthy notes—considered less than ideal flavor profiles.

In the past two years, Yunnan has begun experimenting with special processing methods, allowing us to taste Yunnan beans exhibiting tropical fruit flavors like jackfruit, passion fruit, and mango. It appears that Yunnan's coffee flavor has improved, suddenly rising to the ranks of specialty coffee, and of course, prices have increased several-fold. However, this is like treating symptoms without addressing the root cause—without changing the fundamental varieties from the source, it's difficult to truly produce coffee with excellent regional characteristics of Yunnan.

The Path Toward Premium Yunnan Coffee

Of course, we often hear about high-quality varieties like Gesha, Typica, and Bourbon in Yunnan, but these excellent varieties represent just a drop in the ocean of Yunnan's coffee production. For instance, FrontStreet Coffee began planting trials in Lincang back in 2013, planting the first batch of Typica varieties, which only achieved a relatively good harvest in the 2020-21 production season, yielding just over 200 kilograms. In terms of flavor performance, these beans lacked the "devil's aftertaste" that Mr. Hnuaizong described for Catimor, instead presenting flavors of nuts, brown sugar, and slight fruit acidity. There are many others like FrontStreet Coffee focusing on improving varieties from the source, but this is still insufficient to change the flavor profile of the entire Yunnan producing region—the road ahead is long and challenging.

Current Status and Future Outlook

Currently, thanks to the prevalence of specialty coffee concepts, although Yunnan cannot immediately transform its coffee varieties, the overall quality of Yunnan beans has indeed improved compared to before through careful attention to harvesting fully ripe cherries and refined processing methods. However, there is still a considerable distance to cover compared with world-class coffee producing regions.

According to data from Coffee Salon's "Coffee Annual 2021," China's current coffee consumption market size is around 100 billion yuan; of this, instant coffee accounts for 72%, ready-to-drink coffee accounts for 10%, and freshly ground coffee accounts for 18%. This means that the specialty coffee market, which we pay particular attention to, represents only a small segment in China.

Meanwhile, according to the "2019 Yunnan Province Coffee Industry Development Report" released by the Yunnan Coffee Industry Association in June 2020, in 2019, the province's raw coffee beans and deep-processed products were exported to 55 countries and regions including the European Union, United States, Japan, and South Korea. Coffee beans and related products exported totaled 56,100 tons, of which "non-roasted, non-extracted caffeine coffee" (raw beans) accounted for 52,900 tons (94.3%), "roasted but non-extracted caffeine coffee" accounted for 600 tons, and "coffee concentrate extracts or products containing coffee concentrate extracts" accounted for 2,600 tons. The report does not specify how much of these 52,900 tons of green beans were used for processing into single-origin coffee beans versus how much was used for instant coffee production, but we can make some educated guesses based on consumer market data.

Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee believes that as China's specialty coffee market grows, it will have a positive impact on the specialization of Yunnan coffee. The earthy flavors and bitter, mixed aftertastes of Yunnan coffee are gradually fading away. However, to reiterate, without solving problems at the source, it will be difficult for Yunnan coffee to establish regional flavor characteristics recognized worldwide.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473