Confession of a Yunnan Coffee Bean

Specialty coffee beans require that all ripe red berries be selected when picking fresh berries. (Photo courtesy of Seesaw Coffee)

(This article was first published in Southern Weekend on September 5, 2019)

Can you imagine tasting a tea-like aftertaste from a cup of coffee?

This is not a time travel of taste. Originally named Simao, Pu'er was renamed for tea. It is not only known as the "World Tea Source", but also the "Coffee Capital of China".

Chinese coffee beans? Please follow a seed on a fantastic journey...

I am a coffee bean. In our world, it is popular to name things after the place of birth, so please call me "Yunnan".

More than a decade ago, my predecessors debuted with the name "Yunnan Small Grain Coffee" and became popular for a while due to the craze for tourist specialties. At that time, the word "Yunnan" seemed to be more popular than "coffee". As people were no longer satisfied with the refreshing effect of instant coffee, coffee shops blossomed everywhere and became the "third space" outside of home and office. In the era of mobile Internet, you can drink hot freshly ground coffee within half an hour with just a click on your mobile phone.

Amid the growing craze for coffee consumption, one thing has been overlooked – this imported product is also produced in China.

Spread out the world map, and my compatriots are scattered between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. We enjoy abundant sunshine and rain in this "coffee belt". Not all varieties can tolerate high temperatures and humidity, so a certain altitude is needed. My hometown is in the rolling mountains in southwest Yunnan. Most areas are more than 1,000 meters above sea level, with fertile soil and a large temperature difference between day and night. The perfect natural conditions make it produce 98% of China's coffee beans, and the remaining small amounts come from Hainan and Taiwan.

China's coffee consumption market is exploding. In 2018, it reached about 100 billion yuan. According to the current crazy growth rate, it will exceed 1 trillion yuan before 2025, which is an astronomical figure for me. However, the two ends of the industrial chain are a bit twisted, with the upstream exporting and the downstream importing, each going their own way. In the 2018-2019 harvest season, the total output of Yunnan coffee beans was about 150,000 tons, more than 70% of which was exported overseas, and some of them were labeled as foreign and sold back to China at high prices.

When you sip a cup of fragrant coffee, whether it comes from a cafe, convenience store, takeaway boy, self-service coffee machine, or brewed by yourself in the office or at home, whether the coffee powder is freshly ground or packed in capsules, drip bags, or instant bags, you are at the end of a complex industrial chain. With this cup of coffee, let me take you upstream. In my hometown, there are continuous mountains and rainforests, hiding another scene of the coffee world.

Coffee trees grow all over the mountains in Yunnan's coffee producing areas. (Photo courtesy of Seesaw Coffee)

From red to naked

Don't forget that the true essence of a coffee bean is a seed.

According to nature's arrangement, our fate should be to return to the earth, take root and sprout, and bear fruit again in 3 to 5 years. Since humans discovered that the caffeine in our bodies is a good thing, they began to frantically cultivate artificial seedlings, and we no longer have to worry about reproducing offspring. Even if it is eaten by animals, it will become cat poop, bird poop, or elephant poop coffee. You can imagine it.

In the spring of 2019, there was a severe drought in my hometown, which caused the coffee trees to bloom a month late. I also gave birth late, and I don’t know what my physical condition will be like when I grow up. I am lucky, because some trees died of thirst, which worried many owners.

Our hosts are called Yunnan coffee farmers, or coffee growers. In the eight production areas of Pu'er, Baoshan, Dehong, Lincang, Xishuangbanna, Dali, Wenshan, and Nujiang, nearly 400,000 farmers cultivate more than 1.8 million mu of coffee farms. Most of them are mountain ethnic minorities - Wa, Lahu, Hani, etc. Their naturally dark skin, after years of exposure to the sun, is comparable to that of roasted coffee beans.

Coffee farmers are turning over and drying coffee beans. (Photo by Peter Yu)

The coffee season begins in November every year and lasts until March of the following year or even later. During this period, the red coffee berries mature one after another like cherries, and need to be picked by coffee farmers one by one to deliver them to us. Our "bean life" really begins when we leave the coffee tree, and what awaits us is to be stripped of the outer coat layer by layer.

There are three main methods for processing green coffee beans: washing, sun drying, and honey processing. The former is the most common in Yunnan: using machines to peel off the peel and pulp wrapped around our bodies, removing pectin with the help of microorganisms in the fermentation tank, and then giving us a good bath, sunbathing and drying, we become shelled beans (also known as parchment coffee beans). Finally, after shelling and polishing, we are left with only a layer of silver skin covering our bodies. Yunnan people figuratively call us "coffee rice". About 6 kilograms of fresh fruit can produce 1 kilogram of green beans. The owner will sell us for money at different stages according to his processing capacity.

Through various trading channels, we flow to coffee companies, green bean traders, and roasters around the world. When we finally face consumers, some businesses advertise "100% Arabica". In fact, Arabica coffee beans account for about 70% of the world's production, and the quality and value of different subspecies vary greatly. In contrast, the other native species is Robusta, which has about twice the caffeine content of the former, strong vitality, low planting cost, and is now mostly used for instant coffee.

The so-called "Yunnan small-grain coffee" refers to Arabica species. More than 95% of Yunnan beans belong to the Catimor subspecies, mixed with a quarter of Robusta bloodline. Such a hybrid origin is mediocre in the world coffee family tree. In addition, Yunnan coffee farmers have long been extensively managed, so our outlet is mainly instant raw materials and espresso blend base beans.

This does not mean that we have no chance to succeed. In recent years, through professional planting and picking, and special processing, a few elite Yunnan beans have stood out. More and more coffee people have taken root in Yunnan, and the "second generation of coffee" have returned to their hometown to start businesses. They believe that Yunnan has the opportunity to become the next high-quality coffee bean production area.

Slight weather changes can also affect the processing of green coffee beans. (Photo courtesy of Seesaw Coffee)

Specialty coffee and tea compete for popularity

Can you imagine tasting a tea-like aftertaste from a cup of coffee?

In coffee producing areas such as Pu'er, Xishuangbanna, and Lincang, tea trees are indigenous and have a long history. Pu'er, formerly known as Simao, has changed its name for tea. The title of "World Tea Source" is much more famous than "China's Coffee Capital". To make an inappropriate analogy, bulk commercial coffee is like terraced tea, which wins by quantity, regardless of origin or quality. In recent years, ancient tree tea has become more and more popular, and the brand value of regions and mountains has soared, which coincides with the traceability emphasized by boutique coffee.

It is my dream to become a boutique coffee bean, which means that my quality can be among the top 5% in Yunnan and the top 20% in the world. Of course, I don’t call myself a boutique coffee bean. Humans are keen on talent shows, and cupping is popular in our coffee industry. Professional tasters will score based on dry and wet aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body fat, balance, consistency, cleanliness and sweetness. A total score of more than 80 points can be labeled as a boutique, and more than 85 points is considered a top-notch bean.

Strong, light, bitter, smooth - when an average consumer evaluates coffee, these are the words that may come to mind at most. When you look at the complex circles of words on the "coffee flavor wheel", you will definitely be lost in the various flavors of coffee. The sugars, fats, proteins, acids and alkaloids contained in raw coffee beans generate thousands of flavor substances during the mysterious roasting process, of which about 850 have been identified. It is not surprising to taste the taste of tea in coffee.

Highly sweet sun-dried coffee beans stick to your hands because the sugar seeps out of the surface. (Photo courtesy of Seesaw Coffee)

Compared with ordinary crops, the processing of coffee beans is complicated, and the processing of specialty coffee beans is even more delicate and strict. Any mistake in any link will lead to failure. Our neighbor Pu'er tea is also not a worry-free child, but tea farmers love tea and understand tea, and they are very knowledgeable about planting, processing, and brewing. However, most coffee farmers have been growing coffee for decades and don't even know what it tastes like. Every spring, tea lovers from all over the country flock to the tea mountains, and the grand occasion is really enviable.

Fortunately, with the popularization of the concept of boutique coffee, Yunnan beans have also received unprecedented attention and love. Some people fly to Yunnan to visit us every year like migratory birds, and some simply bring their families to live with us as we grow. They teach coffee farmers techniques with great patience, conduct drastic experiments and innovations, and strive to change the market's stereotype of Yunnan beans, bridge the information asymmetry at both ends of the industrial chain, and explore the infinite possibilities of the flavor of Yunnan.

Difficulties are inevitable. Most of our owners have not received systematic education, and even communication in Mandarin is a problem, let alone modern agricultural training for them. To give the simplest example, when picking premium coffee beans, all ripe red fruits are required, while the fruits hanging on a branch are often green and red. On steep slopes, coffee farmers who pursue efficiency are accustomed to picking them all. In order to solve this seemingly easy problem, some people have proposed a material reward and punishment mechanism, some rely on village cadres to assist, some ask coffee farmers to taste good coffee to compare the differences, and some pay for equipment to teach coffee farmers how to make coffee...

Lahu coffee farmers in Nanling Township, Lancang County, Pu'er are picking fresh coffee berries. (Photo provided by Aizhe Coffee)

"The fruit on the entire tree in the Central American estate is completely red, why are ours like this?"

While everyone was trying to change people, Li Shaoquan from Mangshi, Dehong, wanted to change trees. He went to the Institute of Tropical and Subtropical Economic Crops of Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Ruili to consult coffee experts. He risked a 50% reduction in production and even aggravated pests and diseases. He changed the intensive planting method in the past to reduce the density and prune branches. The experiment was successful, and the quality of fresh fruit was guaranteed. The former navy captain who returned to his hometown to grow coffee began even crazier chemical experiments: using the water-sealed method of Yunnan pickles for anaerobic fermentation, borrowing from French cheese to use deep soil bacteria to ferment complex and rich regional flavors, and even brought the fermentation process of oolong tea to Ethiopia, which is the hometown of our coffee beans. I am excited just thinking about it.

"This is a process from 'I want' to 'we want to be together'."

Another Shanghai customer who loves to experiment with Yunnan beans is Seesaw Coffee. Since the establishment of the "Ten-Year Yunnan Plan", this boutique coffee brand has conducted more than 300 experiments. The planting and processing manuals shared free of charge have influenced hundreds of estates and directly trained more than 200 coffee farmers. In order to gain the trust of coffee farmers, the young team led by Aqi has paid a lot of tuition. Now that the ten-year period is just over halfway, as a mid-term answer sheet, they have joined hands with Pu'er Menglian Xingang Tea and Coffee Estate to hand over a cross-border innovative black tea sun-dried boutique coffee bean, which finally made us proud in front of our Pu'er tea neighbors. Next, Seesaw also plans to cultivate rare varieties in Yunnan, establish a certification system, and drive more coffee farmers to define the taste of Yunnan together.

Aqi, the head of Seesaw's "Ten-Year Yunnan Plan", is training coffee farmers in Menglian County, Pu'er. (Photo courtesy of Seesaw Coffee)

The Seesaw team conducts coffee cupping at a cooperative farm. (Photo courtesy of Seesaw Coffee)

“If you tell coffee farmers that there are a bunch of little kids with tattoos and weird hairstyles in a faraway place who are willing to pay a high price for coffee that tastes like vinegar, no one will believe it. But when they actually see these ‘monsters’, they will naturally believe it and be motivated to do it.”

The Torch Coffee Lab in Pu'er has ignited the dreams of many coffee lovers. Through training courses and the "Mountain Man Project", they bring coffee lovers from all over the world to the estate, allowing urban people to get to know the Yunnan production area while covered in mud, and also allowing coffee farmers to understand the real market demand. Like Martin, the bearded boss of Torch, there are several foreigners who focus on the specialty coffee business in Yunnan. In 1904, when the French missionary Tian Deneng planted a coffee seedling in Zhukula Village, Dali, he must have never thought that more than a hundred years later, the "coffee missionaries" spoke fluent Chinese with a Yunnan accent, and their future plans all fell on Southeast Asia, hoping to use Yunnan's successful experience to help local people achieve drug substitution planting.

Climbing up to the giants, but still keeping anonymity

Have you ever noticed us in Starbucks?

In 2017, Starbucks launched its first Yunnan coffee beans from a single origin in China, followed by the launch of Yunnan Yellow Honey Processed and Elegant Manor Selected coffee beans. However, due to the limited production, our Yunnan beans are always like a legend, with few opportunities to show up. If you want to buy them, you can only try your luck, and Starbucks in Pu'er is no exception.

You heard it right. Pu'er, a fifth-tier city with few white-collar workers and tourists, has a Starbucks with a very special identity. As Starbucks' first coffee origin store in China, the white and green mermaid announces: This is China's largest coffee producing area.

On the opening day of the store in 2018, my owner also went to join in the fun. The coffee trees in front of the door, the pottery jars and ethnic paintings displayed in the store, and the plaque next to the bar that read "This store is dedicated to the Yunnan coffee growers" all made the coffee farmers feel at home. Yunnan beans finally rewarded their owners in their hometown.

The Pu'er Starbucks store is decorated with local paintings made of coffee filter paper. (Photo by Ding Ziling)

For coffee farmers, Starbucks plays a more important role behind the scenes rather than in front of the stage: in 2011, it teamed up with local enterprises to establish Starbucks Aini Coffee (Yunnan) Co., Ltd., and in 2012, the first coffee grower support center in the Asia-Pacific region was established in Pu'er. To date, nearly two thousand farms have passed its "Coffee and Grower Fairness Standards" certification.

However, it is not easy for us to enter Starbucks. In the spring of 2019, the Starbucks inspection point was filled with coffee farmers from far away, with their trucks loaded with tons of anxious coffee beans. Only a few of them were lucky enough to pass the random inspection, and most of them were rejected.

Another hope is Nestlé, which has always been the largest purchaser of Pu'er coffee and a weather vane of market prices.

I heard from the older generation of coffee farmers that Nestlé taught them how to grow coffee. In 1988, Nestlé took a risky move in its competition with Maxwell and decided to build a localized full industry chain from farm to market in China. After an investigation, Nestlé chose Pu'er as its planting base and signed a ten-year cooperation agreement with the government. It was from this time that the Catim variety, which has strong resistance to pests and diseases and high yield, gradually occupied Yunnan.

Although "coffee" has become an indispensable element of today's lifestyle, Chinese coffee farmers are no different from other farmers. The picture shows a coffee farmer in Yunnan drying his own coffee. (Photo courtesy of Seesaw Coffee)

Before this, Baoshan had always been the major coffee town in Yunnan, and breeding and selling to Pu'er was once the main business of Baoshan coffee farmers. In Lujiangba, Baoshan, Xinzhai Village at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain is known as the "No. 1 Coffee Village in China". In the 1950s, the Typica variety was successfully cultivated in Baoshan, and then large-scale planting began to meet the huge demand of the Soviet Union. The coffee industry once developed rapidly, but fell to the bottom in the turbulent years.

Nestlé completely changed the landscape of Yunnan coffee. By 1990, the coffee planting area in Pu'er had surpassed that in Baoshan, and gradually embarked on the road of scale and industrialization. Two years later, Nestlé established a coffee agronomic service department in Pu'er, successively dispatched 6 foreign agronomists, invested high costs and technical support, and set off a coffee planting boom in Pu'er that lasted for several years.

Although I didn't catch up with the highlight moment of Yunnan coffee, I am still proud to talk about this, but I am also mixed with joy and sorrow. Today, Nestlé's annual purchase volume in Yunnan is about twice that of Starbucks, and international food companies such as Kraft are also the main purchasers. Climbing up to the giants, but hiding its identity as a primary raw material, Yunnan coffee has never been able to brand, and finally cannot escape today's transformation dilemma.

The road ahead is uncertain, but we must keep exploring despite the difficulties

“Should we still grow coffee?”

In recent years, I often hear the owner ask such questions. Having said so much, we still have to talk about money. After all, our worth is directly related to the livelihood of coffee farmers.

Once upon a time, growing coffee was a shortcut for Yunnan people to get out of poverty and become rich. In 2011, the price of Yunnan coffee beans soared to 40 yuan per kilogram, doubling that of two years ago. However, coffee is a futures commodity, and our Yunnan beans only account for about 1.5% of the world's total production, which is insignificant to the international coffee futures price. The good times did not last long. In 2014, the Yunnan coffee market entered a downturn along with the international market, which has continued to this day.

In 2019, Starbucks and Nestle purchased coffee beans in Yunnan at a price of about 13 yuan per kilogram, which is close to or even lower than the planting and processing costs of coffee farmers. Assuming that a cup of coffee requires 15 grams of coffee beans, the cost of raw beans is only 0.2 yuan. Faced with the dilemma of more production and more losses, some coffee farmers choose to cut down coffee trees and plant other crops; some simply let us fend for ourselves on the branches, after all, hiring people to cut down trees is also a huge expense.

A coffee farmer who has just finished pruning the branches of a coffee tree. (Photo by Peter Yu)

Oversupply and rising planting costs after blindly following the trend have made the market even worse. On the other hand, many traders are deterred by the violation of the spirit of the contract, the unclear standards for picking and processing, and the unstable quality of different batches.

“It’s not enough to just grow coffee, you have to grow good coffee” has gradually become a consensus.

Premium Yunnan coffee beans can be sold for 30-60 yuan/kg or even higher, with a large premium space. If you don't want to indulge in meaningless gambling on futures prices, then you can regain your dignity and value through intensive cultivation. Yunnan's local premium coffee brands have been groping forward, and the "second generation of coffee" who were raised by their parents to grow coffee have also begun to inherit the family business and take charge of their own business.

Mei Zi, a "second generation coffee drinker" born in the 1990s, has become a little famous in the boutique coffee circle. When Mei Zi returned to Pu'er in 2015, she didn't know how to taste coffee at first, so she learned everything from scratch. Good coffee speaks volumes, and over the years, Mei Zi has accumulated a group of boutique coffee customers. (Photo provided by Mei Zi)

Li Guanting of Aizhe Coffee has great ambition and sense of mission. His father joined Nestle when he was 9 years old and has now firmly established himself in the coffee foreign trade. Li Guanting wants to build a coffee brand that runs through the upstream and downstream of the industry chain and strive for more voice for his hometown. To this end, he opened a coffee shop, went to Brazil for inspection, filmed promotional videos, sought financing... and often quarreled with his father. He hopes that one day when China's coffee consumption reaches a considerable level, Yunnan beans will no longer need to be exported, but will be in short supply.

In March 2019, at the 2nd Pu'er International Specialty Coffee Expo, several "second-generation coffee" guests talked about the embarrassing situation of Yunnan coffee, and couldn't help but sigh that it was supported by feelings. The large volume and low price of commercial coffee and the high price and small volume of specialty coffee cannot save the entire Yunnan production area. Perhaps the road to boutique Yunnan beans can be taken in this way: in China, relying on the advantages of tax exemption, low transportation cost, short supply cycle, and deep customization, replace the imported mid-range beans from Central and South America with higher cost performance; in the more stable international market, as an oriental flavor that makes people shine, ferment endless topics.

Remember the water washing method mentioned earlier? Before peeling, we need to flotate the ripe fresh fruit to the bottom, while the dry fruit, diseased fruit, and unripe fruit float to the surface and are eliminated. The current market reshuffle of Yunnan coffee is just like this flotation process. Although it is cruel, it may not be a bad thing for the entire industry. I hope I am one of the ones that sink.

Ding Ziling