How is Yunnan coffee moving into specialty production?

Yunnan coffee is shifting from instant coffee raw material toward specialty coffee. Three waves shaped that path: export-for-loan-repayment in the 1950s and 1960s, Nestle's promotion of the Catimor variety in the 1980s, and the arrival of the specialty coffee concept after 2000. Pu'er now has a growing number of specialty shops, and brands like Starbucks have entered the market.

Growing conditions set the limits. Well-known coffee regions sit between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, an area called the coffee belt, and only Yunnan and Taiwan meet both the belt and altitude requirements in China. Coffee is not native here; the earliest documentary record of cultivation dates to 1877. Varieties differ too: Catimor and Typica perform differently in the cup.

Yunnan coffee is undergoing a transformation from instant coffee raw material to specialty coffee. This article reviews the three waves of Yunnan coffee cultivation, from the export-for-loan-repayment in the 1950s and 1960s, to Nestlé's promotion of the Catimor variety in the 1980s, and then to the introduction of the specialty coffee concept after 2000. The article also provides an in-depth analysis of the differences in variety characteristics between Catimor and Typica, as well as Front Street Coffee's practice of establishing an estate in Lincang, planting Typica, and adopting natural processing, taking you through a comprehensive understanding of the true face and quality potential of Yunnan coffee.

Front Street Yunnan Coffee Primer: Yunnan Also Has Specialty Coffee Beans, Not as Bad as You Think

The coffee industry in Pu'er, Yunnan, is undergoing a transformation—from a source of instant coffee raw materials to a participant in the third wave of coffee. This change is not only reflected in the endless stream of specialty coffee shops in the city; Starbucks, young coffee enthusiasts, and various specialty coffee brands have also come to this small Yunnan city with great ambition.

The flavor expression of crops cannot be separated from suitable growing conditions. Altitude is certainly key, and climatic conditions are equally indispensable. Many of the world's well-known coffee-producing regions are basically distributed within the area between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn known as the "Coffee Belt."

On China's vast territory, only Yunnan and Taiwan can simultaneously satisfy both conditions: a location in the "Coffee Belt" and suitable altitude. However, coffee is a foreign crop for China; tea is the native plant of this land. The earliest documentary record of coffee cultivation in China appeared in 1877, in the "Regulations on Pacifying the Aborigines and Opening the Mountains for Aftercare" drafted by Fujian governor Ding Richang, which mentioned having the indigenous inhabitants of the Ryukyu Islands switch to growing a series of cash crops including coffee, in order to replace a hunting lifestyle and achieve the purpose of civilizing them.

The place where coffee was first introduced and cultivated in mainland China was precisely Yunnan. According to the "Binzhou County Annals" and "History of Catholicism in Yunnan," in the 30th year of the Guangxu reign (1904), the French Catholic missionary Tian Deneng was dispatched by the Dali diocese to Binchuan Prefecture, and while building a church in Zhukula Village, he personally planted the first coffee tree, the coffee from which was for his own consumption only.

Looking back at the history of coffee cultivation in Yunnan, it has roughly gone through three stages:

The first stage began in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, most people had never even experienced the taste of coffee, let alone understood what coffee actually was. During that period, the coffee beans grown in Yunnan were mainly exported to the Soviet Union to repay loans. Cultivation was handled by the Yunnan agricultural reclamation system, and the state foreign trade department purchased them uniformly. The farms involved in coffee cultivation at that time included Baoshan Lujiang Farm, Xincheng Youth Farm, Dehong Zhefang Farm, Ruili Farm, Wanding Farm, Wenshan Babu Farm, and Tianbao Farm, among others. The varieties planted were locally propagated Typica and its Bourbon variants.

After the loan repayment task was completed, the foreign trade department no longer actively purchased Yunnan coffee beans. At the same time, the spread of coffee diseases caused a large number of coffee trees to become infected and even die; in order to curb the spread of disease, large numbers of coffee trees were cut down. Yunnan's coffee planting area once shrank to less than 3,000 mu.

The second stage began in the 1980s with the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy. In 1988, Nestlé began vigorously supporting Yunnan's coffee industry and actively promoted the cultivation of the Catimor variety locally. Catimor's yield reached three times that of Typica, and its disease resistance was outstanding. For growers, they cared more about purchase prices and fruit harvests, and did not have much understanding of coffee flavor itself. As a result, Catimor gradually replaced Typica and became the main variety of Yunnan coffee, once accounting for 90% of Yunnan's total coffee output.

The third stage appeared after 2000. The rapid rise of China's economy attracted the attention of a large number of coffee brands, and the concept of specialty coffee also entered China along with it. As consumers' enthusiasm for specialty coffee continued to heat up, Yunnan coffee's work in variety selection and cultivation also advanced actively. To this day, the process of specialty development in Yunnan coffee is still ongoing.

Yunnan small-bean coffee was originally named after the Typica variety—Typica's coffee beans are small in size, in contrast to the medium-bean Robusta grown in Hainan, hence the name "small-bean." Front Street has also mentioned that because Catimor has high productivity and strong disease resistance, many growers have had to painfully cut down Typica trees and switch to planting Catimor. At present, Catimor still accounts for the majority of Yunnan's planting area, and so-called Yunnan small-bean coffee now more often refers to the Catimor variety.

If you want to experience the basic origin flavor of Yunnan coffee, Front Street. Yunnan Small Bean is a good choice. This bean uses washed processing and medium roasting, showing soft notes of chocolate, brown sugar, and nuts.

The Catimor variety was developed in 1959 by the Portuguese Coffee Leaf Rust Research Center (CIFC) and is a hybrid descendant of the Timor variety and the Caturra variety. Thanks to the Robusta genes carried by Timor, Catimor has strong resistance to coffee berry disease and coffee leaf rust, and also has a certain ability to resist coffee pests.

Regarding the Catimor variety, the Taiwanese specialty coffee master Han Huaizong once described it as having a "devil-like aftertaste." The presence of Robusta genes may give Catimor coffee an earthy, fishy taste. Of course, with the continuous improvement of cultivation techniques and processing methods, the flavor performance of Yunnan Catimor is also gradually improving.

In order to pursue the terroir flavor of Yunnan, Front Street Coffee established its own coffee estate in Lincang. The Lincang production area is located in southwestern Yunnan Province, with the Tropic of Cancer running through its southern part, bordering Pu'er, Dali, and Baoshan, and adjoining Myanmar to the southwest. It is a pearl of the southwestern frontier. The local planting altitude is above 1,000 meters, the annual average temperature is about 17 degrees Celsius, the dry and wet seasons are distinct, and sunshine is abundant. These conditions provided an ideal natural environment for Front Street Coffee to plant Typica coffee trees here.

The Typica coffee beans grown at Front Street Coffee's estate use the natural processing method. Ripe coffee cherries are spread completely and evenly on raised beds for sun drying, and are turned from time to time to avoid uneven drying that would produce unpleasant fermentation flavors. The method of keeping the fruit intact allows more sugars to penetrate into the green coffee beans, making this Front Street coffee bean rich in aroma and prominent in sweetness, allowing everyone to taste the pure flavor of Yunnan specialty coffee.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.