Where are China's coffee growing regions? What is the quality, flavor, and taste of Yunnan coffee beans?

In recent years, along with the rise of "China-Chic" culture in China's new era, more and more practitioners have begun to recognize China's own coffee. Yunnan coffee has become a trend among coffee brands across the country, with more local Yunnan coffee brands emerging and shining as bright lights of "domestic excellence."

The Golden Age of Yunnan Coffee

As China-Chic culture rises, Yunnan coffee beans have entered their golden age. Let us first review the challenging development of Yunnan coffee.

The Development of Yunnan Coffee

The story of Yunnan coffee can be traced back to 1904, when a French missionary brought coffee seeds into Yunnan from abroad and successfully planted the first coffee tree in a place called Zhukula. He probably never imagined that a century later, coffee would become a highlight of specialty agriculture on the Yunnan plateau.

The 1960s were a period of further expansion in Yunnan's coffee cultivation scale. After the founding of New China in 1952, under the leadership of expert Ma Guojin from the Agricultural Science Institute, large-scale coffee cultivation was formally developed, with the produced coffee being supplied to the Soviet Union. During this period in 1937, patriotic overseas Chinese Mr. Liang Jinshan brought back a batch of seeds from Myanmar to Baoshan, opening up coffee cultivation land in Baoshan's Lujiangba area. At this time, Yunnan's varieties all belonged to Typica and Bourbon variants, with the cultivation area reaching as much as 50,000 mu.

Later, Yunnan coffee was affected by global leaf rust disease, causing large-scale death of coffee trees and a significant reduction in cultivation area. By the 1980s of reform and opening up, Yunnan coffee began to gradually enter the international market. In 1988, foreign enterprises such as Nestlé established branches in China, supporting the development of Yunnan's coffee industry in multiple aspects. They not only introduced high-yield, disease-resistant varieties like Catimor but also promised to purchase Yunnan coffee beans as raw materials at the then-current US futures prices. These measures further expanded Yunnan's coffee cultivation area and increased the enthusiasm of coffee farmers. In 1995, the Yunnan provincial government formally included Yunnan coffee cultivation in the biological resources "18 Project," and coffee cultivation developed rapidly, with both area and yield significantly increasing.

After the new millennium, with the vigorous development of various industries in China and the continuous promotion of specialty coffee concepts, many second-generation and third-generation coffee farmers in many of Yunnan's production areas began to adopt cultivation and processing methods in line with international standards. Many domestic specialty coffee brands also established deep connections with Yunnan origins, and every year more stunning Yunnan specialty coffees appear in our vision.

Yunnan Coffee Varieties

Before the 1980s, the varieties widely cultivated in Yunnan were two ancient small-bean varieties: Typica and Bourbon. The so-called small-bean varieties refer to smaller-sized Arabica varieties, in contrast to the medium-bean Robusta coffee beans from Hainan.

Typica offers rich and diverse flavors, presenting various fruit acidity and delicate textures, and is recognized as a high-quality variety. The renowned FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee and FrontStreet Coffee Hawaii Kona coffee both belong to Typica. In appearance, Typica trees are tall with good cold resistance, but they have low single-plant yield and poor resistance, being highly susceptible to leaf rust, coffee berry disease, and nematode disease. Therefore, they require more human management input, and since the variety doesn't have much advantage in market sales prices, many Yunnan coffee farmers chose to replace Typica with higher-yield varieties.

In 1995, the Yunnan provincial government formally included Yunnan coffee cultivation in the biological resources "18 Project," which greatly encouraged farmers' cultivation enthusiasm, and the village's cultivation area rapidly expanded. In the same year, the Institute of Tropical Crops of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences introduced a new disease-resistant, high-yield coffee variety—Catimor—which began to be cultivated in Xinzhai Village of the Nujiang River Canyon in Yunnan.

Catimor 7963 is a hybrid variety developed by the Portuguese Tropical Research Institute (HCT) specifically for coffee rust disease, with stable characteristics. This variety has characteristics such as compact tree form, dwarf growth, many branches, and short fruit nodes. It grows vigorously with extremely strong vitality, and its greatest features are amazing rust resistance and high yield capability. Therefore, it is deeply loved by Yunnan coffee farmers, and currently over 90% of coffee trees in Yunnan are Catimor.

What are the Coffee Growing Regions in Yunnan?

Yunnan coffee cultivation is distributed across 35 counties and districts in 9 prefectures and cities including Pu'er City, Baoshan City, Dehong Prefecture, Lincang City, Wenshan Prefecture, and Xishuangbanna. The Yunnan coffees on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list are selected from the Baoshan and Lincang production areas.

Beneath the Gaoligong Mountains, along the banks of the Nujiang River Grand Canyon, Lujiangba nurtures delicious Baoshan small-bean coffee. The elevation of Lujiangba ranges from 640 meters to 1400 meters, possessing the most suitable altitude for growing small-bean coffee. Additionally, Lujiangba is one of the few typical subtropical dry-hot valley climates in the country, with abundant sunlight, frost-free throughout the year, and large day-night temperature differences, which are conducive to organic matter accumulation. Therefore, Baoshan small-bean coffee is rich in protein, crude fiber, crude fat, and sucrose, with low caffeine content—presenting as "strong but not bitter, fragrant but not intense." Based on the flavor characteristics of Yunnan production areas, FrontStreet Coffee has found a FrontStreet Coffee Catimor coffee bean from the Baoshan production area in Yunnan. As part of FrontStreet Coffee's signature daily bean series, this FrontStreet Coffee Baoshan Yunnan small-bean coffee allows everyone to taste the flavors of Yunnan production areas at an extremely high cost-performance ratio.

Meanwhile, another FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan coffee on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list comes from Lincang—it's a coffee bean cultivated and produced by FrontStreet Coffee itself, selected from the elegant Typica variety and processed using natural sun-drying methods.

Yunnan coffee cultivation is distributed across 35 counties and districts in 9 prefectures and cities including Pu'er City, Baoshan City, Dehong Prefecture, Lincang City, Wenshan Prefecture, and Xishuangbanna. The Yunnan coffees on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list are selected from the Baoshan and Lincang production areas.

Yunnan's Lincang is influenced by the Indian Ocean warm and humid air currents and southwest monsoon, with不明显 distinctions between the four seasons but clear wet and dry seasons. It has abundant rainfall, long sunshine hours, short frost periods, and some areas are frost-free year-round, with obvious three-dimensional climate, making it very suitable for Arabica coffee cultivation. FrontStreet Coffee specifically selected the most original Typica variety. Typica offers rich and diverse flavors, presenting various fruit acidity and delicate textures, and is recognized as a high-quality variety. The renowned FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee and FrontStreet Coffee Hawaii Kona coffee both belong to Typica.

Whenever November arrives, the coffee fruits planted by FrontStreet Coffee also ripen successively. FrontStreet Coffee will arrange for workers to pick the red coffee cherries one by one, and spread the fresh coffee fruits under the sun for natural drying, turning them irregularly to ensure even dehydration and avoid negative flavors from over-fermentation.

Brewing Recommendations for Yunnan Coffee

Some friends, after purchasing roasted FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan small-bean coffee beans, don't know how to extract them. First, FrontStreet Coffee believes that the freshness of coffee beans is very important. Since roasted coffee beans have an optimal tasting period, if the flavor peak has passed, the flavors will be difficult to extract. The beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are all freshly roasted within 5 days, aiming to let everyone enjoy the most complete tasting period.

FrontStreet Coffee's Pour-Over 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 amount of water as coffee grounds to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome for a 30-second bloom. Then use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside to outside until reaching 125g, then pause. Wait for the coffee bed to drop to half the dripper's height, then continue with the same fine water stream to inject the third stage to 225g, until all coffee liquid has filtered through, then remove the dripper. The total time should be about 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Small-Bean Daily Coffee Flavor:

It smells strongly of nuts in the aroma, with herbal, chocolate, and caramel notes on the palate, and a light fruit acidity in the aftertaste. The overall taste is balanced with good cleanliness.

FrontStreet Coffee 2013 Sun-Dried Typica Coffee Flavor:

The dry grounds present aromas of caramel, nuts, and citrus. At high temperatures, it shows chocolate, fermentation notes, and berries. As the temperature decreases, plum acidity emerges, with black tea and sugarcane's sweet aftertaste. Medium-high body, clear texture, with rich and varied layers.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473