How do Typica and Catimor differ in yunnan coffee?

Typica and Catimor form the main cultivated lineup in yunnan coffee, with Typica arriving first and Catimor later taking the absolute majority of Yunnan small bean output, becoming the public face of the term. Typica brings a long history but low yields, while Catimor offers the late-mover advantage that farmers adopted widely.

The article covers Typica's botanical traits, washed processing logic, and the roast curve, cupping performance, and pour-over parameters for a washed 2013 Typica lot. It also recounts early planting attempts in Guangdong, the decision to stop that plan after Catimor seedlings reached 20 centimeters, and later visits to the Ministry of Agriculture coffee germplasm bank.

In the variety landscape of Yunnan coffee, Typica and Catimor each hold their own place. The former has a long history but low yields, while the latter has risen to become synonymous with "Yunnan small bean." Front Street Coffee, drawing on its own planting experience, revisits the reasons and process behind choosing Typica, explains in detail Typica's botanical characteristics and washed processing logic, and presents a complete overview of the roast curve, cupping performance, and pour-over parameter recommendations for Front Street 2013 Typica washed beans. Whether you want to understand the variety evolution of Yunnan's coffee-producing regions or are looking for a clean and balanced Yunnan Typica brewing plan, this article is worth reading.

When talking about Yunnan coffee, variety is always an unavoidable core topic. In Yunnan, Typica and Catimor make up the main cultivated lineup—Typica first, Catimor later—and today Catimor, with its late-mover advantage, occupies the absolute majority of Yunnan small-bean coffee and has become the representative of "Yunnan small bean" in public perception. This time, Front Street Coffee wants to talk about the current variety landscape of Yunnan coffee, as well as Front Street's experience growing coffee in Yunnan firsthand.

As early as half a year before formally starting roasting, Front Street had already begun trying to grow coffee trees. At that time, we were growing coffee in a place in Guangdong called Dazhen. By the time the Catimor we planted had grown to 20 centimeters tall, Front Street truly sorted out the relative importance of coffee variety, growing environment, and processing method. We also realized that from the very beginning, planting the wrong variety in the wrong place would make the final flavor in the cup unimaginably poor.

So Front Street terminated the Guangdong planting plan, and while continuing to roast coffee, moved forward with the idea of growing specialty coffee. We successively visited institutions with deep research on coffee cultivation—the Tropical Crops Research Institute under the Ministry of Agriculture's coffee germplasm bank—and also came into contact with a small number of coffee farmers growing specialty coffee. Gradually, we figured out why no one in Yunnan grows mainstream specialty varieties such as Typica and Bourbon, and later, by a stroke of luck, found suitable land.

If one merely wants to have a ready-made coffee estate of one's own, it is actually not difficult. The reason Yunnan coffee farmers have long been unwilling to grow coffee is that the labor cost for picking one kilogram of coffee is higher than the selling price. Unless the family has surplus labor, even when the coffee is ripe, they cannot be bothered to pick it. At this point, buying a small plot from a coffee farmer before harvest, doing some natural processing, and trying some honey processing can produce Yunnan specialty coffee in two or three months. We are not sure whether this controversial approach is right, just as a former director of Yunnan Coffee commented before: "The current situation of more than one million mu of Catimor in Yunnan's producing areas is the main problem urgently awaiting transformation and improvement before us. So debate is a good thing, but it cannot negate all the efforts we are making now."

Amid the fog, Front Street Coffee deliberately chose the hardest path: select highlands, cultivate Arabica varieties, and plant rationally.

In variety selection, Front Street decisively chose Typica, because as the oldest variety, its flavor is beyond doubt. In addition, Yunnan already had a history of growing Typica as early as 100 years ago, which is also one of the bases for Front Street's judgment that Typica is feasible. Typica has very low yields, averaging only one-third that of Catimor, and is also highly susceptible to leaf rust, so it places higher demands on agricultural technique and manual management costs.

Typica Characteristics Typica is highly recognizable in appearance and may be the easiest variety to identify. The plant is conical, with a main vertical trunk, and can grow up to 5 meters tall. This height means that, compared with other varieties, Typica has longer spacing between branches and between nodes on the same branch. Lateral branches form an angle of 50 to 80 degrees with the vertical trunk. Neither the trunk nor the branches are particularly thick, and the leaves, fruit, and green beans are usually slender. The tips of young leaf buds are bronze-colored. Compared with other Arabica varieties, Typica's leaf surface is smoother and has fewer wavy edges. Typical Typica fruit is bright red when ripe.

The bronze-colored top leaves of Typica are one of its signature characteristics. The beans are relatively large and pointed-oval or slender-pointed in shape, and some also call it "red-top coffee." Typica coffee has a uniquely quiet, clean flavor and balanced character, with high cleanliness in the cup. Its shortcomings are relatively low yield, specific altitude requirements, susceptibility to leaf rust, and weak resistance to pests and diseases.

Of course, before Front Street's own Yunnan Typica was produced, Front Street also kept an eye out for some Yunnan coffees of good quality.

Front Street 2013 Typica Washed Typica

Region: Baoshan producing area, Yunnan, China

Altitude: 1200m

Variety: Typica

Processing method: Washed

Only when Front Street came to the Yunnan producing area during the growing season did we truly understand what the rainy season means. Sunny for a few minutes, raining for half an hour—precisely because of the year-round rainy season and unstable climate, most Yunnan coffee beans use the washed processing method.

The harvested cherries are put through a depulper to separate most of the pulp from the coffee beans, and then the parchment beans are introduced into a clean water tank and soaked in water to ferment, thoroughly removing the remaining mucilage layer. About five years ago, the washed method was often still the first choice for processing good coffee beans. Through water processing, unripe beans and defective beans are sorted out by buoyancy, and the fermentation process is also easier to control. Therefore, in terms of flavor, it is not as prone to off-flavors as natural beans, but instead presents clear fruit acidity, slightly greater complexity, and cleaner cup characteristics (without negative flavors such as astringency or sharpness).

Front Street Coffee Roast Analysis Front Street's roaster believes that using a medium slow roast for Front Street 2013 Typica coffee beans best expresses its rounded, smooth character without losing rich floral and fruity aromas.

Roaster: Yangjia 600g semi-direct fire

Raise the drum temperature to 200°C and charge. Set the damper to 3. After 30 seconds, adjust the heat to 160°C, keep the damper unchanged. The turning point is 1'33''. Adjust the heat once at 168°C; at this time the bean surface turns yellow, the grassy smell completely disappears, and dehydration is complete. Adjust the heat to 130°C and the damper to 4. At 8'45'', ugly wrinkles and dark streaks appear on the bean surface, and the toast aroma clearly turns into coffee aroma. This can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 9'07'', first crack begins. Reduce the heat to 80°C and open the damper fully to 5 (adjusting the heat must be done very carefully, not so low that there is no crack sound). Three minutes after first crack, drop at 198°C.

Front Street Cupping Front Street Coffee conducts cupping within 8 to 24 hours after sample coffee beans are roasted. The cupping bowls used by Front Street baristas are generally 200ml ceramic bowls, marked with 150ml and 200ml graduation lines. According to SCAA standards, the water TDS is around 150ppm. Too low a TDS easily causes over-extraction, while too high affects mouthfeel and easily causes under-extraction. The cupping water temperature is 94°C. The cupping grind size follows SCAA standards, controlled so that 70%-75% passes through a No. 20 standard sieve (0.85 mm). The ratio is 11 grams of coffee grounds to 200 milliliters of hot water, that is, 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.

Front Street 2013 Typica coffee bean cupping: the entry is rich fruity aroma, melon and herbal aromas; smooth on the palate, with nuts and milk chocolate in the middle, lively and bright plum acidity in the finish, salivation on both sides of the cheeks, good balance, medium body, full body. As the temperature goes from hot to warm, layered changes in sweetness and acidity can be felt—sweet first, then acidic—with apricot and citrus-toned acidity, and a finish of black tea and a little brown sugar.

Front Street Coffee Brewing Front Street Yunnan Small Bean Pour-Over Recommendations Choose 15 grams of coffee grounds; the recommended coffee-to-water ratio is 1:15. If you want clearer flavor, use 1:16. Choose a V60 dripper, brewing water temperature 88°C, with the aim of making the acidity softer, and grind size medium-fine / fine sugar consistency (80% passing through a No. 20 sieve).

Front Street segmented brewing method: bloom with 30 grams of water for 30 seconds, then pour in a small stream in circles until 125 grams for the first stage. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring until 225 grams and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. The extraction time is 2 minutes (starting timing from the beginning of the bloom).

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