How Should You Grind Yunnan Catimor Coffee for Pour-Over?

Catimor is widely planted across Asia for its disease resistance, cold tolerance, and high yield. In the cup it shows more limited layering and a less delicate mouthfeel than many arabica varieties, though better cultivation and processing have improved its cleanliness. Yunnan small-bean coffee has moved from Typica toward Catimor over time.

For pour-over, a medium-fine grind, a coffee-to-water ratio near 1:15, and water around 90 to 92 degrees Celsius suit Yunnan beans. A three-stage pour helps bring out the plum-like acidity, brown sugar caramel sweetness, and melon-fruit aroma typical of the region. This type of arabica coffee rewards a steady, even pour.

Catimor is a variety widely planted in Asian coffee-producing regions. It is favored by growers for its advantages such as disease resistance, cold tolerance, and high yield, but its flavor expression and delicacy of mouthfeel are often discussed in the specialty coffee circle. This article will systematically introduce the varietal origin and flavor characteristics of Catimor, sort out the cultivation evolution of Yunnan small bean coffee from Typica to Catimor, and share Front Street Coffee's practical experience in the improvement of Yunnan coffee varieties. At the same time, it will explain in detail the hand-brew grinding setting, coffee-to-water ratio, water temperature, and three-stage pouring scheme for Yunnan coffee beans, helping coffee lovers present the plum-like acidity, brown sugar caramel sweetness, and melon-fruit aroma unique to the Yunnan producing region in a more scientific way.

The Arabica family continues to grow, with new varieties emerging one after another, but in Asian coffee-producing countries, Catimor has always been a choice that growers have long relied on. Its widespread popularity is mainly due to several advantages: strong cold tolerance, outstanding disease resistance, and high yield per unit area. Of course, Catimor is not without shortcomings—the plant has a relatively short lifespan, its flavor layering is relatively limited, and its mouthfeel cannot be called delicate.

For this reason, opinions on Catimor in the specialty coffee field have always been divided. However, with the continuous advancement of cultivation techniques and post-processing methods, Catimor coffee has already improved noticeably in cleanliness, and its image in people's minds has gradually improved as well.

What exactly is Catimor coffee?

Like many fascinating varieties highly sought after in the specialty coffee world (such as Pacamara and SL28), Catimor is not the product of natural evolution, but was artificially bred in a laboratory, and its background is hardly romantic. One of its parents is Caturra, which originated from a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety in Brazil; the other side is Hibrido de Timor (also known as "Timor Hybrid" or "Tim Tim"), a peculiar result produced by the only known natural cross between Canephora (a type of Robusta) and Arabica on Timor Island in Southeast Asia in the early 1900s.

Because it contains Robusta genes, some enthusiasts believe that Catimor cannot strictly be considered Arabica. But from the perspective of growers, what cash crops pursue is low input and high output. However, as consumers place higher demands on coffee flavor, the cultivation management and green bean processing steps of Catimor have gradually received more attention.

Some coffee cultivation researchers have pointed out that as long as Catimor is planted in high-altitude areas with a mild climate and abundant rainfall, and the surrounding environment is kept clean during processing, the astringency and unpleasant flavors inherent to the variety can be effectively weakened.

Is Yunnan Catimor small bean coffee good to drink?

Most people first encounter Catimor through Yunnan coffee. Although Yunnan has a century-long history of coffee cultivation, what was first planted there was not Catimor. In 1904, a French missionary brought the first coffee tree to Yunnan, and later genetic testing confirmed it to be the Typica variety. However, at the time it was not recorded under the name "Typica," but was recorded as "small bean coffee" based on the morphology of Arabica coffee fruit.

After that, for a period, in order to repay loans to the Soviet Union, Yunnan coffee farmers planted Typica coffee trees on a large scale. After the debt was paid off, domestic coffee consumption demand was very low, so many farmers cut down the coffee trees and switched to other cash crops. It was not until the 1990s, when Nestle took a fancy to Yunnan as a treasured land and distributed Catimor coffee trees with stronger resistance to leaf rust, that people began planting coffee again and supplied it to Nestle for a long time.

During the period when the main supply was to Nestle, coffee farmers did not cultivate carefully, and the extraction and drying processes for coffee beans were not meticulous enough, resulting in an unsatisfactory flavor for Yunnan coffee in the first 20 years. It was not good to drink directly, and Yunnan coffee therefore had a poor reputation.

However, with the continuous growth of coffee consumption demand, Yunnan coffee producers and sellers realized that only by promoting scientific cultivation and being more meticulous in the extraction and drying stages could the flavor of Yunnan coffee become cleaner. At the same time, in recent years, special processing techniques have become increasingly mature, and people began applying them to Yunnan Catimor coffee beans, correcting undesirable flavors through external intervention, and only then did consumers gradually accept Yunnan coffee.

Although scientific cultivation and improvements through post-processing methods have made Yunnan coffee much better tasting, FrontStreet Coffee believes that the unpleasant flavors of Catimor itself still exist, and are merely masked by more scientific cultivation and post-processing. The significance of specialty coffee lies in improving quality. If the planted variety and cultivation altitude have not been changed, and quality improvement is claimed solely by emphasizing post-processing methods, that is somewhat far-fetched, and it itself does not conform to the spirit of specialty coffee.

Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee began establishing its own estate in 2013 and started planting the Typica coffee variety. Typica was chosen because, on the one hand, as one of the oldest coffee varieties, it has pure Arabica genes; on the other hand, its flavor is elegant and clean, and it has always been recognized as a specialty coffee variety.

Although by 2022, Front Street Yunnan Typica coffee beans were not produced in large quantities, only a little over 600 kilograms, enough to supply sales on FrontStreet Coffee's Taobao store and production at FrontStreet Coffee's physical stores, only by personally experiencing the entire process can shortcomings be discovered and continuous improvement be made. Also, precisely because a change was made at the coffee variety level, although "Front Street 2013 Yunnan Typica Coffee Beans" uses traditional sun-drying processing, its flavor expression is very full and alluring, with notes of plum, berries, brown sugar, black tea, and nuts.

Although Front Street has planted Yunnan Typica coffee, FrontStreet Coffee also sells a Catimor coffee bean from the Baoshan producing region in Yunnan. As a member of FrontStreet Coffee's signature daily coffee series, this Yunnan small bean coffee allows everyone to taste the flavor of the Yunnan producing region at the highest cost-effectiveness. Its expression features the plum-like acidity, brown sugar caramel sweetness, and melon-fruit aroma unique to the Yunnan producing region.

How should Yunnan coffee beans be brewed to taste good?

All coffee beans sold by FrontStreet Coffee are shipped within five days of the roast date. Only freshly roasted coffee beans can display coffee's most beautiful flavor. In order to preserve the sweet-and-sour sensation and tea-like characteristics of Yunnan coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses a medium roast for it.

Front Street recommends using a V60 dripper, a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:15, medium grinding (about the size of coarse granulated sugar / 75% passing through a China No. 20 standard sieve), and a water temperature of 88-89°C, combined with three-stage pouring for brewing.

In the first stage, pour 30g of water and bloom for 30 seconds; in the second stage, pour in a small stream in circles up to 125g, and after the water level in the coffee bed drops by half, pour again, continuing to pour in a small stream in circles up to 225g. Wait until dripping is fully complete; the total extraction time is about 2 minutes 10 seconds.

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