Which Yunnan coffee brands sell authentic small-bean beans?

Yunnan is one of the few places in China that grows Arabica, and its reputation has risen as more specialty shops put Yunnan beans on their shelves. Front Street Coffee has kept an estate in Lincang since 2013 and works directly in cultivation. Most Yunnan coffee today is Catimor; Typica is rarer because of low yield and leaf rust susceptibility.

Typical Yunnan arabica variety flavor is balanced, with nutty and brown sugar notes and restrained acidity. The region is moving toward specialty grade, but output does not yet meet every specialty requirement, so buyers should check variety, processing and roast date. Look for vendors who name the estate and the variety rather than labeling a bag simply as Yunnan.

Yunnan is one of the few regions in China capable of growing Arabica coffee. In recent years, its reputation has been steadily rising, and more and more specialty coffee shops are prioritizing Yunnan beans on their shelves. Front Street Coffee has maintained an estate in Lincang, Yunnan since 2013, personally participating in cultivation and promotion. Currently, Yunnan coffee is dominated by the Catimor variety, while Typica is less commonly grown due to its low yield and susceptibility to leaf rust—though its flavor is excellent. Yunnan coffee generally has a balanced flavor profile, characterized by nutty and brown sugar notes, with acidity that is not particularly prominent. This article reviews the current state of Yunnan coffee varieties, growing conditions, and cupping performance, and introduces Front Street's Yunnan small-bean coffee and sun-dried Typica currently on sale, along with brewing parameters, for coffee enthusiasts' reference.

For more specialty coffee knowledge, please follow: Front Street Coffee (Frontsteet Coffee)

Yunnan coffee's fame has been on the rise in recent years. There are few regions in China that can grow Arabica, and places that are remembered for coffee are even fewer—Yunnan stands out as one of the more prominent growing regions. Some friends may not be aware that Front Street Coffee has been involved in coffee cultivation in Yunnan since 2013. Over these years, the quality of Yunnan beans has continued to improve, and more and more specialty coffee shops are giving priority to Yunnan beans—which indirectly shows that Yunnan coffee is heading in a good direction. However, as a roaster who has long tracked the Yunnan growing region, Front Street also has firsthand experience of the local coffee's shortcomings: overall, Yunnan coffee is in the process of moving toward specialty grade, but at present it cannot be said to have fully met all the requirements of specialty coffee, so colleagues still pushing Yunnan coffee forward need to keep working harder!!!

Most Yunnan coffee currently grown is Catimor. Catimor is a hybrid of Timor and Caturra, with outstanding disease resistance and high yield, earning it a place among Central American coffee varieties. Among the Yunnan beans Front Street offers, there is a Yunnan small-bean coffee whose variety is Catimor. Yunnan small-bean coffee originally referred to coffee of pure Arabica varieties; small-bean coffee originated in Ethiopia or the Arabian Peninsula. The main growing areas are distributed across Lincang, Baoshan, Simao, Xishuangbanna, Dehong, and other places.

Yunnan's Catimor grows vigorously with stable secondary traits. The young leaves at the tips of the canopy are emerald green, and the whole plant has dark green foliage. The plant form is columnar, with short internodes, many branches, wide adaptability, strong drought resistance, and a certain degree of cold tolerance. Compared with Typica, Yunnan Catimor yields considerably more. In fact, according to Front Street's understanding, the earliest coffee planted in Yunnan was not Catimor but Typica, which has outstanding appearance and good sweetness. Later, when international big brands entered Yunnan and purchased large quantities, in order to maximize local coffee production, they began promoting Catimor. Typica has low yield and is prone to coffee leaf rust, making it difficult to manage with unsatisfactory economic returns, which led Yunnan coffee farmers to be reluctant to grow Typica.

Although Catimor adapts well to Yunnan, its flavor has always been controversial. Han Huaizong often uses "the devil's aftertaste" to describe Catimor in his books. However, Front Street believes that many factors affect coffee flavor and it cannot be generalized. For example, Indonesian Mandheling is of the Catimor variety, yet Mandheling's flavor is still widely praised.

Although Typica is grown only in small quantities in Yunnan, its flavor is quite good. One of Front Street's Yunnan coffee beans—Huaguoshan Coffee—is Typica, and the brewed flavor is also excellent. Yunnan has high temperatures and abundant rain year-round. Coffee farmers make full use of these natural conditions and adopt the washed processing method: the harvested coffee cherries are depulped using a depulper to remove the skin and flesh, then the processed beans are introduced into clean water tanks and soaked for about 18 hours, using fermentation to remove residual mucilage, after which they are dried.

Therefore, Front Street also conducted cupping and brewing experiments on this Yunnan small-bean coffee and Huaguoshan Coffee. Yunnan coffee's flavor characteristics are generally quite balanced, with a base tone of nuts and brown sugar. In order to highlight the varietal flavors of Yunnan coffee, Front Street uses a medium roast for these two Yunnan coffees.

Front Street Coffee conducts cupping within 8-24 hours after roasting Yunnan sample beans. Front Street generally uses ceramic cupping bowls with a capacity of 200ml, marked with 150ml and 200ml graduation lines. According to SCAA standards, the water TDS is about 150ppm—TDS too low easily causes over-extraction, while too high affects the mouthfeel and easily causes under-extraction. The cupping water temperature is 94°C. The cupping grind size follows SCAA cupping standards, controlled so that 70%-75% passes through a No. 20 standard sieve (0.85mm). The ratio is 11 grams of coffee grounds to 200 milliliters of hot water, i.e., 1:18.18, so that the extracted concentration falls exactly within the golden cup range of 1.15%-1.35%, with a steeping time of 4 minutes.

Through tasting, Front Street reached the following conclusions about the flavor characteristics of these two Yunnan coffee beans: Cupping results for Front Street 2013 Typica coffee beans: rich melon and fruit aromas and herbal aromas on entry, smooth on the palate, nutty and chocolate flavors in the mid-palate, lively and bright plum acidity in the finish, with black tea and brown sugar notes in the aftertaste.

Cupping results for Yunnan small-bean coffee: bright, soft acidity, good body and balance, rich layers, with obvious dark chocolate, honey, and sucrose notes in the aftertaste, presenting brown sugar flavors when fully cooled.

From Front Street's Yunnan coffee cupping results, it can also be seen that Yunnan is not a region whose main profile is acidity; rather, Yunnan beans have relatively balanced flavors, with a base tone dominated by nuts and brown sugar. If you want to more clearly experience Yunnan's basic terroir, you can start with the everyday drinking bean series mentioned earlier. The formation of Yunnan coffee's flavor is inseparable from the local geography—Yunnan's natural conditions are very similar to Colombia's, both at low latitude and high altitude, with large temperature differences between day and night.

From Front Street's earlier cupping results for Yunnan coffee, the mouthfeel is also quite good. For example, Front Street Coffee's Yunnan small-bean coffee has a flavor somewhat close to Colombian coffee, but not entirely the same. Front Street Coffee's Yunnan small-bean coffee has a dry aroma of nuts when smelled, and on the palate more chocolate, nut, and cream flavors, but without the caramel sweetness of Colombian coffee—instead, more of a brown sugar sweetness, with a relatively balanced overall mouthfeel.

Thanks to Yunnan's superior climate conditions, Yunnan coffee trees generally take four years from planting to bearing fruit and harvest. Front Street has learned that coffee flowers usually have a short lifespan of only two to three days. The full bloom period of Yunnan small-bean coffee is generally from March to May, greatly affected by rainfall and temperature. Planting altitude is a fundamental factor for coffee cultivation. Large areas of mountainous land in Yunnan can exceed 1,000 meters: Kunming's altitude is 1,895 meters, Baoshan's is 1,653.5 meters, Dali's is 1,976 meters, Chuxiong's is 1,773 meters, Dehong's average altitude is 800 to 1,500 meters, and Diqing's average altitude is 3,380 meters.

With high altitude comes the need to consider temperature. Generally speaking, the Coffee Belt lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, because outside this belt the probability of frost is very high, and coffee trees die when they encounter frost. In Yunnan, because the Gaoligong Mountains lie north of Baoshan, they block the southward sweep of Siberian cold currents in winter, and combined with the many mountainous areas, this forms a protective microclimate for coffee growing.

In its early days, in order to comprehensively understand and share coffee knowledge, Front Street Coffee even established a coffee estate in Lincang, Yunnan—that is, as early as 2013, it was already growing the most original Arabica variety, Typica, on the Front Street Coffee estate. Lincang's average temperature is around 21°C, with highs reaching over 40°C, making it an ideal place for growing Yunnan small-bean coffee. The Yunnan small-bean coffee produced in Lincang is strong but not bitter, rich and aromatic.

The year 2022 has arrived, Yunnan coffee's harvest work has temporarily come to an end, and the latest batch of coffee beans from Front Street Coffee's estate has also been listed.

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee): Front Street Yunnan Sun-Dried Typica

Region: Lincang, Yunnan

Estate: Yunnan Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Estate

Altitude: 1,300 meters

Variety: Typica

Processing method: Sun-dried Typica

The Typica produced by Front Street Coffee's estate uses the most original and traditional post-harvest green coffee processing method—the sun-dried method. After sun-drying, Front Street's Typica coffee has a fuller mouthfeel with more prominent sweet-and-sour notes, featuring citrus and berry tones with a hint of fermented wine aroma, caramel sweetness, and a creamy finish.

Finally, let Front Street share with everyone the parameters Front Street uses when brewing Yunnan Sun-Dried Typica:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water temperature: 90°C

Coffee dose: 15 grams

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: 80% pass rate on Chinese standard No. 20 sieve

First pour 30 grams of hot water and bloom for 30 seconds, then pour from the center with a thin stream and slowly circle out to 125 grams for the first stage. Wait until the water level in the dripper drops to just about to expose the coffee bed, then continue circling and pouring to 225 grams. Total extraction time is about 2 minutes.

When Front Street ships, the coffee beans delivered to everyone are freshly roasted within 5 days, and by the time you receive them, they have gone through a 4-to-7-day resting period, which is when their flavor is at its best. Front Street has also noticed that some friends choose to have Front Street grind the coffee on their behalf because their home grinding equipment produces a high proportion of fines. It should be noted that after coffee is ground, its flavor compounds volatilize at a faster rate.

Therefore, Front Street recommends buying whole beans and grinding fresh right before brewing to experience the best flavor. And when friends have just received Front Street's coffee beans, they can see a very beautiful blooming "hamburger" during brewing. The reason the blooming process is needed is to allow the coffee grounds to release their internal carbon dioxide gas, thereby making the later stages of extraction more stable.

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