Yunnan coffee is standing at a point of dual growth in both production and market, and Hu Lu, vice president of the Provincial Coffee Industry Association, remains optimistic about its prospects. This article will sort through the picking season of Yunnan small-bean coffee, the structure of the fruit, the characteristics of peaberry, and the regional differences in coffee ripening periods around the world, while also presenting the latest developments in Yunnan's coffee industry in terms of planting area and the potential of the consumer market. For enthusiasts who follow Yunnan coffee's flavor and origin stories, this information helps provide a more comprehensive understanding of the journey of the coffee in the cup from branch to bean.
Yunnan Coffee Bean Harvest Time and Season, Small-Bean Coffee Bean Flavor Description, Taste, Estate Introduction
In the view of Hu Lu, vice president of the Provincial Coffee Industry Association, although production this harvest season has decreased somewhat compared with expectations and the market also appears relatively quiet, the future of Yunnan coffee is still worth anticipating. He mentioned that, judging from information already made public, both Pu'er and Lincang intend to maintain coffee planting area at around 1 million mu, and by this calculation, by 2020 the province's coffee planting scale will expand to 2.8 million mu. Considering further that the whole province's coffee is about to enter a high-yield stage, annual output is expected to reach 180,000 to 200,000 tons by then, and Yunnan's position among the world's major coffee-producing regions will also rise markedly.
The enormous consumer space contained in China's coffee market has undoubtedly injected strong confidence into Yunnan's coffee industry. Statistics show that the current domestic per capita annual coffee consumption is only 4 cups. Even in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, each person consumes only 20 cups per year, far below Taiwan's 40 cups, South Korea's 240 cups, and Japan's 200 cups, and the gap is even more significant compared with the level of about 400 cups in the United States and European countries, which means there is very broad room for growth in the future coffee consumer market. Hu Lu said that judging only from domestic demand, even if Yunnan's coffee planting area exceeds 2.8 million mu, in the face of a rapidly expanding market, supply may still fall short of demand.
The outer skin of a ripe coffee fruit is red, and because its shape and color are both similar to cherries, in many places the ripe coffee fruit is called a coffee cherry. Beneath the bright red exocarp are, in order, the skin, the pulp, and a layer of sweet, sticky yellow substance that wraps around the coffee beans.
Usually, a fruit contains two coffee beans, with their flat sides facing each other. Sometimes a coffee tree also produces some smaller fruits containing only one coffee bean, and this single bean has different names - peaberry, single bean, or perla. It does not have a flat side, and its shape is almost round. Because it is rare in number and requires special manual selection and collection, its selling price is often considerably higher than that of ordinary coffee beans. Many people believe that peaberry has a particularly outstanding flavor, because the round bean body can tightly lock the coffee's original taste inside, giving it an extremely intense mouthfeel, and it is regarded as a premium grade among coffee beans.
Most Arabica coffee beans ripen from June to August, while Robusta coffee beans ripen from September to October. Therefore, although in countries where the distinction between dry and wet seasons is not obvious, such as Colombia and Kenya, there are two flowering periods a year, and thus two harvests, one large and one small, strictly speaking a year still counts as only one harvest.
Affected by region, coffee harvesting times also differ. Areas north of the equator, such as Ethiopia and Central America, usually harvest once between September and November. South of the equator, such as Brazil and Zimbabwe, although the harvest period can extend to August, the main harvest is concentrated in April or May. Countries along the equator, such as Uganda and Colombia, can harvest throughout the year, especially those estates that are skilled at using different altitudes for planting. Therefore, freshly harvested coffee beans may be available during most of the year.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
