Taste Profile of Yunnan Small Bean Coffee, Known as "Fragrant Coffee" - Characteristics of China's Yunnan High-Altitude Arabica Coffee Region

China's Hainan and Yunnan are both coffee-growing regions, with Yunnan being the largest coffee-producing area in China. Yunnan coffee, also known as Yunnan Arabica coffee, is called "Fragrant Coffee." In recent years, Yunnan's annual coffee production has reached around 26,000 tons, accounting for 90% of the country's total production.

Coffee is a beverage crop with high economic value, ranking alongside cocoa and tea as the world's three major beverages. Its production and consumption rank first among these three drinks. Coffee is rich in protein, fat, sucrose, starch, glucose, caffeine, and other substances, offering rich aroma and delightful taste. Coffee belongs to the Rubiaceae family, genus Coffea, as a perennial evergreen shrub or small tree. There are many varieties, with the most widely cultivated being Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica.

However, due to various reasons, the development of Yunnan's coffee industry has not been rapid. Yunnan coffee is primarily exported as raw material, with export volumes reaching about 15,000 tons in 2006. Over 60% of the raw materials are acquired by Nestlé and Maxwell House annually, while Starbucks and Amway have also joined the acquisition ranks in recent years.

China not only has a long history of tea but also boasts a considerable history of Yunnan coffee cultivation. As early as 1904, missionary Tian De Neng came to Dali to preach and brought coffee seedlings to plant in Zhugula Village, Binchuan, thus beginning Yunnan's coffee cultivation history. However, due to various factors, the development of Yunnan's coffee industry has not been rapid. With the advancement of specialty coffee and the promotion of domestic products, Yunnan coffee has now become a household name, and its presence can frequently be found in coffee shops today.

Although coffee is an agricultural crop, its requirements for growing environment are higher than those of ordinary agricultural crops. Yunnan's natural conditions are remarkably similar to Colombia's—low latitude, high altitude, and significant day-night temperature variations. The Arabica coffee produced there, through cup quality analysis, is classified as mellow and aromatic, with quality and taste similar to Colombian coffee. The western and southern parts of China's Yunnan Province lie between 15°N latitude and the Tropic of Cancer, making it a region abundant in high-quality specialty coffee. Most areas have elevations between 1,000-2,000 meters, predominantly mountainous and sloped terrain with significant variations, fertile soil, ample sunlight, abundant rainfall, and significant day-night temperature differences. These unique natural conditions in Yunnan have created the special characteristics of Yunnan Arabica coffee—rich without bitterness, aromatic without intensity, with a hint of fruitiness—making it an indispensable region for coffee connoisseurs.

Major Yunnan Coffee Producing Regions

The main coffee-growing areas in China's Yunnan Province include: Lincang, Baoshan, Dehong, and Pu'er. Coffee beans produced in these regions have long gone abroad, reaching major coffee-consuming countries such as South Korea, Japan, the United States, and various European nations.

Pu'er

Although Pu'er City is world-famous for tea, Pu'er coffee also has a century-long history, with cultivation beginning in the late 19th century and industrial development starting in 1988. Its coffee cultivation area has reached 789,000 mu, with coffee bean production of 58,600 tons and total output value of 2.469 billion yuan, making it Yunnan's largest coffee cultivation base. Its climate, geography, and soil conditions are exceptionally suitable for coffee cultivation. Pu'er is China's largest coffee cultivation area in terms of planting area, highest production, and best quality, serving as the main coffee-producing region and coffee trade distribution center. Currently, Pu'er's coffee cultivation area has reached 680,000 mu, with production of 54,000 tons and comprehensive output value of 3.9 billion yuan, benefiting over 250,000 coffee farmers, with per capita income increase of 3,836 yuan. In 2021, Pu'er coffee was approved for national geographical indication product protection.

Pu'er City is honored as the "Coffee Capital of China." Besides being China's main coffee-producing region, Pu'er coffee is also exported to over 30 countries and regions including the Americas, Europe, and Asia, creating a new "black gold" market.

Lincang

Lincang City is located in the southwestern part of Yunnan Province, with the Tropic of Cancer crossing its southern part. It borders Pu'er to the east, Dali to the north, Baoshan to the west, and Myanmar to the southwest, named for its proximity to the Lancang River, making it a brilliant pearl on China's southwestern border. Lincang's average annual temperature ranges between 16.8°C-17.2°C, with distinct wet and dry seasons and ample sunlight. Its climate type is similar to world-renowned high-quality coffee-producing regions like Jamaica and Colombia. The fertile virgin land has nurtured unique Wa ethnic culture and also cultivated Lincang coffee's extremely rich regional characteristics of acidity, aroma, sweetness, and mellowness.

Lincang has therefore earned the honors of "China's Specialty Coffee Bean Demonstration Area" and "China's Specialty Coffee Core Producing Region." In the 24,000 square kilometer area, only one-third has elevations below 1,300 meters, making these areas suitable for growing high-altitude specialty coffee. In 2015, the coffee cultivation area reached 36,000 hectares, making it the country's second-largest coffee-producing region, with plans to expand to 41,700 hectares by 2020. It is mainly distributed in counties (cities) such as Lincang, Gengma, Cangyuan, Fengqing, Yongde, Yun County, Zhenkang, and Shuangjiang. Lincang's coffee development has been rapid, with cultivation area now exceeding 550,000 mu, becoming Yunnan's second-largest coffee-producing region, with production ranking second in the province, accounting for over 20%, second only to Pu'er City, making it a rising star in Yunnan coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's coffee estate is located in Lincang, near the Myanmar border, with sparse population and only a small village of dozens of people nearby. Therefore, the area retains its pristine ecological environment, making it very suitable for growing high-quality coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan natural processed Typica is named "FrontStreet Coffee 2013," which is Yunnan coffee grown by FrontStreet Coffee itself. FrontStreet Coffee began growing coffee in Yunnan in 2013. FrontStreet Coffee's original philosophy for coffee cultivation was to verify a hypothesis: whether "good land, good varieties, good cultivation" could truly change the criticized taste of Yunnan coffee. With this hypothesis in mind, FrontStreet Coffee visited the Institute of Tropical Agriculture and senior coffee cultivation experts. They found an undeveloped forest and started growing coffee from scratch. FrontStreet Coffee deeply understands the importance of varieties and specially selected the Typica variety, which has been rooted in Yunnan for many years. Typica is quite delicate and requires extreme care. The FrontStreet Coffee staff responsible for cultivation built simple houses at the foot of the mountain, living a life of working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

In 2020, FrontStreet Coffee's first batch of self-grown Yunnan Typica coffee beans entered the market, named "FrontStreet Coffee 2013." It uses fully red cherry natural processing to highlight sweetness. During cupping, FrontStreet Coffee found flavors of preserved apricot, Sanhua plum, and caramel chocolate, with very high sweetness.

Baoshan

Baoshan has an average temperature of 21.5°C, reaching up to 40.4°C, with basically no frost year-round, making it a recognized premium Arabica coffee-producing region. The Arabica coffee cultivated here is renowned both domestically and internationally for being rich without bitterness, aromatic without intensity, with small, uniform beans, rich mellow aroma, and fruity notes. FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yunnan Arabica coffee comes from the Baoshan region.

Yunnan Baoshan Arabica coffee has a long cultivation history. Baoshan Arabica coffee can be considered a national geographical indication product and is one of the better-quality coffees both nationally and globally. Baoshan coffee became famous early and is a pioneer in China's Arabica coffee cultivation and processing. The first coffee plant was introduced from Southeast Asia by the late patriotic overseas Chinese Mr. Liang Jinshan. Baoshan's Lujiangba is the earliest area in Yunnan for large-scale, commercialized coffee cultivation, with a long history and rich cultivation experience. In 1952, to meet the coffee market demands of Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union, scientific personnel from the Yunnan Agricultural Experimental Farm's Mangshi branch successfully introduced coffee for trial cultivation in Baoshan's Lujiangba, making Lujiangba the country's first Arabica coffee production base and research center. There are also 60-year-old coffee trees in Lujiangba that still display vigorous vitality.

Dehong - The Hometown of Chinese Coffee

As one of Yunnan's main coffee-producing regions, Dehong is one of the earliest areas for coffee cultivation in Yunnan Province. According to historical records, Nongxian Village in Dehong Prefecture introduced Arabica coffee cultivation as early as 1914, with over a century of coffee cultivation history. As early as 1963, at the International Expo in Hamburg, Germany, Dehong Arabica coffee was evaluated as a high-quality product with "rich aroma, pleasantly tart and delicious," gaining a reputation comparable to Blue Mountain coffee. Additionally, Dehong Prefecture houses China's largest coffee seed gene bank—the Ministry of Agriculture's Ruili Coffee Germplasm Resource Garden, which is one of the first nine tropical crop germplasm resource gardens authorized by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Dehong is also the permanent venue for the Asian Coffee Conference. In the "Three-Year Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of the Coffee Industry" issued by Dehong Prefecture, it is stated that through three years of effort, Dehong hopes to become a world-quality coffee bean production base, the country's largest instant coffee deep processing base, and the China-ASEAN coffee trade center.

Yunnan Coffee Bean Processing Methods

Yunnan's weather is characterized by frequent rain and fog, making washed processing the most common method for Yunnan coffee. Of course, there are also natural processed coffees, such as FrontStreet Coffee's natural processed Catimor coffee and FrontStreet Coffee 2013 natural processed Typica coffee.

Washed Processing: Harvested cherries are processed through a depulping machine to separate most of the fruit pulp from the coffee beans, then the parchment beans are guided to a clean water tank, soaked in water for fermentation to completely remove the remaining fruit pulp layer. Through washed processing, unripe and defective beans are selected out due to buoyancy differences, and the fermentation process is easier to control. Therefore, unlike natural processed beans which may have off-flavors, washed coffee presents distinct fruit acidity, slightly stronger complexity, and cleaner cup characteristics.

Yunnan Coffee Bean Varieties

Yunnan's main variety is Arabica, so-called small-grained coffee, commonly known as Yunnan small-grained coffee in China. Small-grained coffee refers to Arabica coffee beans. Because their coffee beans are smaller in size, they are also called small-fruited coffee. Robusta coffee is called medium-fruited coffee, while Liberica belongs to large-fruited coffee. Since Yunnan grows Arabica coffee, it is also called Yunnan small-grained coffee. It is further divided into Typica and Catimor. Although both belong to the Arabica family, their flavor differences are significant. Today's Yunnan small-grained coffee generally refers to the Catimor variety.

Typica Coffee

The Typica coffee variety was precisely what Father Tian planted in 1904. Later, in the 1930s, returned overseas Chinese Liang Jinshan also promoted and planted Typica in Yunnan, marking the first wave of Yunnan coffee cultivation expansion. The second wave was in the 1950s-60s after the founding of New China, when extensive Typica cultivation began to supply coffee beans to the Soviet Union.

Due to Typica's poor disease resistance and susceptibility to leaf rust damage, its growth conditions must be constantly monitored, with every leaf carefully tended. Because of Typica's low yield, as the planned economy gradually transitioned to a market economy, coffee farmers who lost government guidance lost motivation and switched to growing other high-value economic crops.

Catimor Arabica Coffee

In the 1980s, Nestlé entered the mainland market and also helped Yunnan's coffee cultivation industry to supplement sufficient coffee raw materials. The variety introduced by Nestlé was precisely Catimor. Catimor is a hybrid of Timor and Caturra, while Timor is a hybrid of Robusta and Arabica. Therefore, Catimor possesses 1/4 Robusta genes. This also makes it extremely vigorous with very high yields, and it belongs to full-sun coffee trees (not requiring shade trees). Its disadvantages are also very obvious—poor flavor. Therefore, it is only used as raw material for Nestlé's instant coffee production.

Today, almost 99% of Yunnan's coffee beans are Catimor variety. In terms of flavor, this is a fundamental problem. As China's specialty coffee market flourishes, Yunnan coffee naturally has entered public attention. Many friends ask FrontStreet Coffee, "I tasted an anaerobic Yunnan bean that was very impressive. Has Yunnan coffee now reached specialty coffee standards?"

Indeed, in the past two years, Yunnan has begun researching special processing methods, and we can taste Yunnan beans expressing tropical fruit flavors like jackfruit, passion fruit, and mango. It appears that Yunnan coffee's flavor has improved, leaping into the specialty coffee ranks, and of course, prices have also increased several-fold. However, this is like treating symptoms rather than the root cause. Without starting changes from the source variety, it is difficult to truly produce coffee with good Yunnan regional flavor characteristics.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that current Yunnan coffee quality has not yet reached specialty coffee standards. First is the variety—most of Yunnan grows Catimor, which is inherently inferior to Typica coffee beans in terms of variety. Second, many use anaerobic processing, which although is a novel processing method, masks the coffee's original flavor, making it difficult to discuss specialty quality.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan beans are all traditionally processed coffees such as washed and natural. On FrontStreet Coffee's bean list, there are three Yunnan coffee beans: washed processed small-grained coffee (Catimor), natural processed Catimor, and natural processed Typica coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Coffee Brewing Parameters:

To preserve the acidity, sweetness, and tea-like characteristics of Yunnan coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium roast. For brewing, you can use a V60 dripper with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, medium grind (approximately coarse sugar size / 75% retention rate on China #20 standard sieve), and 88°C water temperature.

Use segmented extraction. Bloom with twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds—specifically, 30g of water for 30 seconds. The blooming process is necessary to allow the coffee grounds to release internal carbon dioxide gas, thereby making the subsequent extraction more stable. Use a small water flow in circular motions to pour to 125g, then continue pouring to 225g and stop. Remove the dripper once the water has finished dripping. Start timing from the beginning of pouring, with extraction time of 2'00". Next, pick up the entire cup of coffee and shake it well, then pour into cups for tasting.

[FrontStreet Coffee Washed Yunnan Arabica Coffee Flavor]: Herbal, nutty aroma, chocolate, caramel.

[FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Natural Catimor Coffee Flavor]: Nuts, chocolate, spices, caramel, plum.

FrontStreet Coffee's Coffee Brewing Recommendations:

Regarding coffee brewing, FrontStreet Coffee has always believed that the freshness of coffee beans greatly affects coffee flavor. Therefore, coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are all roasted within 5 days. 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 resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive it, it is at peak flavor.

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

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

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Important Notice :

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