What are the defining traits of the Typica coffee variety?

Typica is one of the oldest varieties in coffee, prized for an elegant, clean cup, with Jamaican Blue Mountain as its best-known representative. Its terminal bud is copper-red, which is why it is also called red-tip coffee. The tree grows to about 5 meters, with slender trunks and branches angled roughly 50 to 70 degrees from the stem.

The beans are large and elongated with pointed, upturned ends, and the cup often shows citrus-like acidity with a sweet finish. Typica has very weak disease resistance and low yield, which is why Bourbon displaced it in many places. In Yunnan it was planted from 2013 and first harvested in 2020, sun-dried and brewed as pour-over.

Typica is one of the oldest varieties in the coffee world, known for its elegant and clean flavor, with Jamaican Blue Mountain being its representative. However, it has poor disease resistance, low yield, and is extremely difficult to cultivate. This article starts from the botanical characteristics of Typica, traces its history of displacement by Bourbon in the Yunnan production region, and documents in detail the entire process of Front Street Coffee cultivating Typica in Lincang, Yunnan—from site selection and seedling cultivation in 2013 to the first harvest in 2020, using natural sun-drying processing, and ultimately presenting a rich flavor interwoven with caramel, nuts, chocolate, and black tea through pour-over brewing.

Yunnan occupies a pivotal position in China's coffee landscape, as it is the earliest region in the country where coffee was planted. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) began engaging in Yunnan coffee cultivation as early as ten years ago, practicing from the source. The "Front Street 2013" on the bean list is the crystallization of years of dedication, using the ancient Typica variety, processed by the natural sun-dried method, offered for all coffee lovers to taste.

What are the characteristics of the Typica variety?

The most distinctive identifying feature of the Typica coffee tree is that its terminal bud takes on a copper-red color, which is why it is also called "red-tip coffee." The plant's main trunk is relatively slender, with thin and slightly drooping branches. The angle between the lateral branches and the vertical main stem is approximately 50 to 70 degrees. The tree can reach a height of about 5 meters, making manual picking inconvenient. Next to the Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) store, there happens to be a pot of Typica and a pot of Catimor planted, so while enjoying coffee, everyone can observe and compare them. The coffee beans produced by Typica are relatively large, elongated, with pointed and upturned ends, shaped roughly like an egg. In terms of flavor, Typica often carries a citrus-like acidity with a sweet finish, and is praised by many coffee professionals as a representative of elegance and clarity. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is precisely the Typica variety.

Typica has extremely weak disease resistance, with virtually no ability to withstand common diseases such as leaf rust and berry disease, and its yield is also extremely limited. Once a coffee tree is infected with leaf rust, it is like contracting a terminal illness, ultimately only withering and dying. As a cash crop, Typica—with its low yield and frail, disease-prone nature—is difficult to profit from, so many growers choose to give up and switch to varieties with stronger disease resistance. Growing Typica with elegant and pure flavor is by no means easy. From terroir conditions, plant management, fruit harvesting, to post-processing, every step must be fully guaranteed for the coffee beans to develop positive flavors and mouthfeel. This also means that producing high-quality Typica requires more labor costs and technical dedication.

How does Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) cultivate Typica?

China is a country where tea culture prevails, and coffee is an imported product, so Chinese people's understanding of coffee knowledge is relatively limited. In order to explore more coffee knowledge, Front Street traveled to Lincang, Yunnan in 2013, opening a chapter of coffee cultivation. From site selection, seed selection, seedling cultivation, planting, harvesting, processing to roasting, all was personally handled by Front Street colleagues, thereby accumulating extensive experience and knowledge about varieties, altitudes, and processing methods.

The coffee varieties originally planted in Yunnan were the ancient Typica and Bourbon. Later, global leaf rust invaded Yunnan, coffee trees died on a large scale, and the planting area shrank dramatically. Afterward, with the support of several foreign enterprises, the high-yield and disease-resistant Catimor was introduced. This established Catimor's position in replacing the ancient Typica, becoming the main variety of Yunnan coffee today. Typica's low yield, susceptibility to disease, and high management costs mean that growers need to invest a longer exploration time, which is also the reason why most Yunnan coffee farmers are unwilling to plant it.

Lincang, Yunnan is influenced by the warm, moist air currents of the Indian Ocean and the southwest monsoon. The boundaries between the four seasons are blurred, but the dry and wet seasons are distinct, with abundant rainfall, long sunshine hours, and short frost periods. Some areas even have no frost year-round, with obvious vertical climate characteristics, making it very suitable for Arabica coffee growth. Therefore, Front Street specifically chose the most primitive Typica. However, the delicate Typica is known for its low yield and weak resistance, and Front Street truly put considerable effort into cultivation and management. After 5 to 6 years of nurturing, the first batch of results was finally harvested in 2020, processed by natural sun-drying, and named "Front Street 2013."

Why choose the natural sun-dried processing method?

At Front Street, Yunnan coffee beans are only processed in two ways: washed and sun-dried. For this Typica, Front Street chose sun-dried. Sun-dried processing does not require much equipment; the key is simply drying evenly under the sun during consecutive sunny days. The steps may seem simple, but to do sun-dried processing well, the details of every step must be controlled properly.

After the coffee cherries are picked, they must be processed immediately. First, screening is carried out, with flotation being one of the commonly used screening methods. The screened fruits are then placed under the sun to dry. Front Street arranges personnel to turn them at regular intervals to prevent the coffee cherries from overheating and over-fermenting. When the coffee cherries dehydrate and change from bright red to dark purple, reaching the target moisture content, they can be sent for hulling and roasting. Sun-dried Typica presents a fuller fermented flavor than washed, with prominent sweetness and aromas of caramel, berries, and black tea.

The pour-over flavor and mouthfeel of Yunnan Typica coffee

In terms of roasting, Front Street believes that Yunnan coffee should have both a rich coffee aroma and a certain acidity, so a medium roast level is used. For daily store output, Front Street extracts by pour-over, hoping to present the coffee's own aroma to the taster.

Pour-over black coffee is not only the daily output method of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) baristas, but also a method that many coffee lovers can easily operate at home. Front Street takes into account that Yunnan Typica coffee tends toward a balanced mouthfeel, meaning it should not have excessively high acidity or heavy bitterness. Front Street tends to use a V60 dripper, paired with a medium-fine grind size and medium water temperature for extraction.

Front Street uses corresponding parameters when brewing different coffee beans: for darker-roasted beans, such as Mandheling coffee and Brazil coffee, Front Street uses a water temperature of 87 to 88 degrees Celsius and a medium-coarse grind; for lighter-roasted beans, such as Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Panama Geisha coffee, Front Street uses a high temperature of 91 to 93 degrees Celsius and a medium-fine grind to bring out the aroma of high-altitude hard beans. Returning to the brewing of Front Street Yunnan small-bean coffee, Front Street uses medium water temperature and grind to highlight the harmony and balance in mouthfeel.

Brewing parameters :

Dripper: hario v60

Dose: 15g

Water temperature: 90 degrees Celsius

Grind size: 75% passing through a No. 20 sieve

Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15

Three-stage pouring: First, wet the coffee bed with twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds, forming a dome and blooming for 30 seconds. Then, pour in a small stream in a circular motion from the inside out. At 125 grams, pause. When the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, continue pouring the third stage with the same thin stream until 225 grams, until all the coffee liquid has filtered through. Remove the dripper. The time is about 2 minutes.

The flavor of pour-over Front Street 2013 sun-dried Typica: caramel, nuts, chocolate, fermented notes, berries, black tea, sugarcane. Medium-high body, clean mouthfeel, black tea finish, rich and varied layers.

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