Front Street Coffee Estate

Cited from: Front Street Coffee

In another article, I once mentioned that in 2013, while opening a coffee shop and roasting beans in Guangzhou, I also made some attempts in cultivation. At that time, among chain coffee shops, deep roasting was generally preferred, making it rare to taste the flavors of the origin. Coffee knowledge and niche community exchanges were not as easily accessible or widespread as they are today. That’s why I started experimenting with roasting beans, and the floral aromas and fruity acidity mentioned in books turned out to be so real.

Besides the issue of coffee flavor, I had another question at the time. Since each producing region has distinct origin flavors, what then are the characteristics of Yunnan’s? The book “The Blue Book of Specialty Coffee” didn’t directly provide an answer but indicated that Asian producing regions tend to have woody and herbal flavors. The author also specifically pointed out that Mandheling hybrid varieties possess a “devilish aftertaste.” The answer seemed almost within reach, yet I still decided to go and see the local varieties in person.

So I rented a car and traveled to Hainan and Yunnan. In Hainan, aside from a few coffee trees at the entrance of a coffee factory, I found nothing. But when I arrived in Yunnan, it was a different scene—the planted area was indeed much larger. On some small roads from Xishuangbanna to Pu’er, I found many cultivated coffee trees. However, the altitude there wasn’t very high, and the varieties were almost all Catimor. By then, it was already past the end of the harvest season, and there were no coffee beans left on the trees. Some private processing facilities were empty. After asking around, I learned their beans were sold to Hougu and Linfeng (possibly those names). Meanwhile, I also brought back some coffee beans to Guangzhou and managed to grow about a hundred or so seedlings. These seedlings were also Catimor. At the time, I didn’t know that there were still a few Typica varieties in Yunnan, but unfortunately, they didn’t survive the winter. Actually, even before winter arrived, I had already guessed the outcome and continued exploring various parts of Yunnan.

“The Blue Book of Specialty Coffee” concludes that specialty coffee is the result of a combination of variety, altitude, and processing method. Two of these three factors did not align with what I observed, and I roughly understood what needed to be done to achieve that alignment. With this question in mind, I went to the Rubber Research Institute in Mangshi to consult coffee researchers and got answers to some other questions I had. And so, growing coffee in Yunnan became my only choice at the time.

This is the background behind my decision to grow Typica in Yunnan.