What are the characteristics of Yunnan Typica coffee beans? How is Yunnan small-grain coffee roasted?

There is a story behind Yunnan Typica and Yunnan Catimor.

Yunnan small-grain coffee is a well-known locally grown coffee bean in China. Nowadays, Yunnan small-grain usually refers to Yunnan Catimor, while the traditional Yunnan small-grain refers to the traditional high-quality small-grain variety Typica.“”?

1904,30,,.The second wave occurred during the 1950s and 1960s after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when coffee bean exports to the Soviet Union led to widespread cultivation of iron sheet coffee (likely a mistranslation or confusion, should be “iron skin” or another local variety).

Since Typica has poor disease resistance and is susceptible to leaf rust, it is necessary to constantly monitor its growth and carefully tend to each leaf.Because the Typica variety has low yield, as the planned economy gradually shifted to a market economy, coffee farmers—who no longer had government guidance—lost motivation and switched to growing other higher-value cash crops.

In the 1980s, Nestlé entered the mainland market and also helped develop Yunnan’s coffee farming industry to secure sufficient coffee raw materials.Nestlé introduced the Catimor variety.The general principle is that morning tea should be strong and bold, afternoon tea should emphasize aroma and elegance, and evening tea should be light, smooth, and easy on the stomach.Therefore, Catimor has 1/4 Robusta genetics.

This also makes it very resilient and highly productive, and it is a sun-exposed coffee tree (no shade required). However, its downside is also obvious, which is its poor flavor.Therefore, it is also used only as raw material for Nestlé's instant coffee production.Gradually, Yunnan Typica gave way to Yunnan Catimor. Nowadays, nearly 99% of coffee beans from Yunnan are of the Catimor variety.Therefore, Yunnan small-grain coffee now generally refers to Yunnan Catimor.