Yunnan Coffee Bean Varieties, Processing Methods, and Flavor Characteristics | Brewing Guide for Yunnan Coffee

Yunnan Coffee: China's Emerging Coffee Gem

With the promotion of domestic products, Yunnan coffee has become well-known to everyone, and its presence can be found in coffee shops everywhere. However, some people say that Yunnan coffee doesn't taste very good, while others say it's quite delicious... FrontStreet Coffee believes this depends on personal taste preferences. Everyone likes different flavors, so it's natural that some people like it while others don't.

The dry aroma of Yunnan coffee smells of nuts, but when tasted, it reveals more chocolate, nut, and cream flavors, with a prominent brown sugar sweetness. The overall mouthfeel is quite balanced. Since coffee is an agricultural product, the flavor varies slightly each year. Current Yunnan coffee has some tea-like notes, along with nut and pine flavors. It bears some resemblance to FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian Huilan coffee and FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee on the menu, but careful tasting reveals the differences. FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling is rich and mellow with pine and herbal notes; FrontStreet Coffee's Huilan has nuts, dark chocolate, and gentle fruit acidity; while FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Arabica is more balanced but still contains nut and pine flavors, with additional tea-like notes and fruit acidity.

Yunnan: China's Premier Coffee Growing Region

Yunnan is China's largest coffee producing region, with an annual output of about 26,000 tons in recent years, accounting for 90% of the country's total production. It's also the most suitable region for coffee cultivation - a true golden zone for coffee growing. The western and southern parts of Yunnan Province are located between 15°N latitude and the Tropic of Cancer. Most areas have elevations between 1,000-2,000 meters, with predominantly mountainous and sloped terrain that features significant elevation changes. The region benefits from fertile soil, abundant sunlight, plentiful rainfall, and large day-night temperature differences. These unique natural conditions create the distinctive character of Yunnan Arabica coffee - rich without bitterness, aromatic without harshness, with slight fruit notes.

Yunnan's natural conditions are very similar to Colombia's - low latitude, high altitude, and large day-night temperature differences. Cupping analysis of the produced Arabica coffee shows it belongs to the mellow aromatic category, with quality and taste similar to Colombian coffee.

Coffee has been cultivated in Yunnan for 80-90 years. The tropical and subtropical regions in the southern and southwestern parts of Yunnan Province, as well as the low-heat valley areas, are all suitable for growing Arabica coffee. Currently, 27 counties in 11 prefectures cultivate coffee, with 650,000 mu of suitable coffee-growing land throughout the province.

Major Coffee Growing Regions in Yunnan

Yunnan's main coffee growing areas include Lincang, Baoshan, Dehong, and Pu'er. Among these, Pu'er is China's important coffee producing region with the largest planting area, highest output, and best quality, serving as an important distribution center for international coffee business. Baoshan is most famous for Yunnan's Arabica coffee. In December 2010, Baoshan Arabica coffee received A-level certification and was recognized as a product reflecting China's national geographical indication through the China National Standards Administration process.

Lincang City has a subtropical low-latitude plateau mountain monsoon climate with complex terrain, creating a region with multiple climate types. Mainly influenced by the warm and humid air currents from the Indian Ocean and southwest monsoon, the distinction between four seasons is not obvious, but dry and rainy seasons are clearly defined. The area receives abundant rainfall and long sunshine hours, with average annual sunshine exceeding 2,000 hours. The frost period is short, with some areas being frost-free year-round. The vertical climate is evident, with average annual temperatures in mountainous areas ranging from 13-15°C.

FrontStreet Coffee's estate is located in Lincang, where FrontStreet Coffee grows the Typica variety.

Pu'er, known as the hometown of tea, has a 150-year history of coffee cultivation. In the early 1990s, Pu'er City began developing coffee as an advantageous backbone industry to adjust industrial structure and help farmers increase income. Due to the influence of subtropical monsoon climate, most areas in Pu'er are frost-free year-round, with no severe cold in winter and no extreme heat in summer. Pu'er City's average annual temperature ranges from 15 to 20.3°C, with an annual frost-free period exceeding 315 days and annual rainfall between 1,100 to 2,780 millimeters.

Coffee cultivation in Baoshan began in the mid-1950s, with the first coffee seedling introduced from Southeast Asia by the late patriotic overseas Chinese Mr. Liang Jinshan. In recent years, with the expansion of international trade, Lujiangba's Arabica coffee has become renowned far and wide. Baoshan has a low-latitude mountainous subtropical monsoon climate. Due to its location on a low-latitude plateau with complex topography, it creates a vertical climate where "one mountain has four seasons, and ten miles have different weather."

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Arabica coffee comes from Baoshan.

Dehong features no severe cold in winter, no extreme heat in summer, abundant rainfall with rain and heat occurring simultaneously, dry and cold conditions in the same season, small annual temperature variations but large daily temperature differences, short frost periods, and few frosty days. These conditions provide excellent growing and overwintering conditions for coffee trees. The entire prefecture is located near the Tropic of Cancer at low latitudes, influenced by the Indian Ocean southwest monsoon, belonging to the south subtropical monsoon climate.

Main Coffee Varieties in Yunnan

The initial coffee variety grown in Yunnan was Typica. Yunnan Typica can be traced back to 1904, when French missionary Alfred Tiede brought coffee seeds (Typica) from Vietnam to Yunnan and successfully planted them in Zhugula Village, Binchuan County, Yunnan Province. This marked the beginning of Yunnan coffee, generally called small-seed coffee, domestically known as Yunnan Arabica. The Typica variety has relatively low disease and pest resistance and yield, and requires more labor-intensive management. Additionally, market purchase prices don't offer significant advantages, so in recent years, coffee farmers have switched to planting the new Catimor variety. Therefore, the most commonly planted coffee variety in Yunnan today is Catimor and its improved varieties - what people commonly call Yunnan Arabica coffee on the market.

Catimor Coffee Variety

Strictly speaking, the Catimor coffee variety is not pure Arabica. It's a hybrid of the Timor variety (Robusta coffee species) and Caturra (a mutant of Bourbon coffee variety), so Catimor has 25% Robusta coffee genetic heritage.

It's precisely because of containing 25% Robusta heritage that determines the flavor defects of Catimor coffee - insufficient aroma richness, heavy bitterness, and tendency to develop astringency and irritating musty flavors.

Typica Coffee Variety

The Typica coffee variety originates from southeastern Ethiopia and Sudan, and is the most widely cultivated coffee variety in the Western Hemisphere. Its plants are relatively robust but not tolerant to strong sunlight. Typica's top leaves are copper-colored, earning it the name "red-topped coffee." Many commercial improved varieties today originate from this type.

Typica coffee beans are recognized as a specialty coffee variety. However, they have extremely low yields and are susceptible to rust disease, requiring more human management and higher maintenance costs. Excellent estate coffees like Jamaica Blue Mountain, Sumatra Mandheling, and Hawaii Kona all belong to the Typica family.

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. Yunnan coffee is primarily processed using the washed method. FrontStreet Coffee believes that washed coffee characteristics are cleanliness, stability, and higher acidity. FrontStreet Coffee has always believed that washed processing coffee better reflects the local coffee's flavor, so most of FrontStreet Coffee's daily beans are processed using washed methods. FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan coffee comes in both washed and natural processing methods.

The washed processing method involves using machines to remove the skin and pulp from harvested coffee cherries, placing the depulped coffee beans in fermentation tanks for fermentation, using fermentation to break down the mucilage layer, then repeatedly washing the fermented coffee beans with clean water to remove the decomposed mucilage, and finally drying the coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Guide for Yunnan Arabica Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee believes that Yunnan coffee's flavor profile is quite balanced, meaning it simultaneously contains sweet, sour, and bitter notes. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee chose medium roasting to highlight chocolate aroma while retaining some acidity. Through cupping, FrontStreet Coffee tasted FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Arabica daily beans, which present nut and herbal aromas, brown sugar sweetness, and plum acidity, with a balanced mouthfeel. The natural processed FrontStreet Coffee 2013 has higher fruit sweetness, black tea-like richness, with chocolate thickness, and overall clear flavor with a clean aftertaste.

Based on Yunnan coffee's balanced flavor profile, FrontStreet Coffee chose V60, with hand-drip water temperature at 88°C. Too high water temperature can easily produce burnt bitter flavors, while too low temperature can lead to under-extraction. Here FrontStreet Coffee uses 88°C medium water temperature. Compared to other conical drippers, the V60 has a larger outlet diameter, with spiral ribs connecting the top and bottom that allow water vapor to escape more easily during extraction, thereby enhancing flavor layers.

Of course, some people might ask whether Yunnan Arabica coffee, being medium-roasted, can be brewed with a KONO dripper. FrontStreet Coffee believes this is also possible, but if using a KONO dripper, the flavor won't be as rich but will become more mellow. Interested friends can certainly give it a try!

FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Arabica Coffee Brewing Parameters: Dripper: V60, Water Temperature: 88°C, Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15, Grind Size: Medium grind (75% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve).

When brewing, you can use a three-pour method for extraction to give the coffee richer layering. First, pour 30g of water to fully wet the coffee grounds and bloom for 30 seconds. Then, use a small water flow to slowly pour in a circular motion for the second pour to 125g for segmentation. When the water level in the dripper drops to just above the coffee bed, continue pouring. The third pour should reach 225g, then stop pouring. Wait for all water to drip completely into the sharing pot below before removing the dripper. Total extraction time is 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yunnan Arabica Coffee Flavor: Smells of rich nutty aroma, with herbal, chocolate, and caramel notes in the mouth, and a light fruit acidity in the aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Suggestions

To brew a delicious cup of coffee, whether hand-drip or espresso, FrontStreet Coffee has always believed that coffee bean freshness is very important. The coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are all within 5 days of roasting, because FrontStreet Coffee deeply understands that coffee bean freshness greatly affects flavor. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly Roasted Good Coffee," ensuring that every customer who places an order receives the freshest coffee when it arrives. The coffee degassing period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive it, it's at peak flavor.

Of course, some customers need FrontStreet Coffee to grind the beans for them, which is also fine. But FrontStreet Coffee must remind you: once coffee beans are ground in advance, there's no need for degassing, because during transportation, the pressure from carbon dioxide buildup in the packaging can also help round out the coffee flavor, so you can brew a cup immediately upon receiving the ground coffee. However, ground coffee needs to be brewed promptly, because coffee grounds oxidize quickly when exposed to air, meaning the coffee flavor will dissipate relatively quickly, and the coffee won't taste as good. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee suggests buying whole beans and grinding fresh before brewing to better appreciate the coffee's flavor.

In the past, when people talked about coffee, they more often said imported coffee tasted better. Now, our Chinese coffee has also risen to prominence. FrontStreet Coffee has three Yunnan coffees: FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yunnan Arabica Coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Yunnan Catimor Coffee, and FrontStreet Coffee's 2013 Natural Typica Coffee.

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

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat account: 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