What is the quality of Yunnan small grain coffee? Explore the real situation behind the quality of coffee in Yunnan

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In January 2017, we lived in the processing plant we cooperated with in Dehong, Yunnan for half a month. It's a relatively new first-hand material. Let's talk about it in a nutshell. This year, our custom-made beans are still being fumigated and shelled. When we get the big goods later, we can add some of the flavor and final results and more details.

The quality of Yunnan small grain coffee is too broad. Lack of too many details. Let me talk about it on a case-by-case basis.

The following picture shows the treatment plant that has lived for half a month, 1100 meters above sea level.

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The problem facing Yunnan now is that China is too rich and strong compared with other coffee producing areas. This is a bad thing for coffee. After all, farmers in the mountains may earn more than growing coffee, such as going to work in cities, such as growing tobacco and growing fruits. In Ethiopia, not only is there a unique variety of soil and water, but the price of labor in our country seems to be that you can make people work for a day by building a subway.

This year's harvest prices have been largely upside down, with bulk purchases (such as Nestle) offering prices lower than the cost of planting and harvesting for hired farmers. The great motherland is getting richer and stronger, if there is no higher quality products to sell at a better price, do not make money, why grow coffee? Many farmers do not drink coffee, there is no emotional support, this is not the music industry (professional complaints of former musicians broke out)

Let's take a look at what should be behind the quality by planting coffee trees.

After hearing hundreds of thousands of words about planting coffee trees before going up the mountain, it would be better to wheeze and climb to the experimental planting ground of Xiaoquan classmate at 1300 above sea level. (our cooperation in Yunnan, Fang Shaoquan, is a navy captain who has served for ten years. After retirement, he returned to his hometown Dehong to grow coffee. Because he has a messy classmate relationship with our team, we call him "Xiao Quan, he is my classmate of SCAA gold cup extraction, and our baker Zhao Chen is SCAE Roasting/barista, and a fellow teacher of Q-GRADER."

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More than half of the 240 mu experimental planting land is still virgin forest.

This 240 mu experimental planting land retains more than half of the original forest, maintains the diversity of the environment, and is good for preventing diseases and insect pests.

Reduce manual production by 50%

We have always wondered why the maturity of foreign coffee farms can be pruned into red fruits with the same maturity, while those grown in Yunnan are always green and red.

So a group of experiments were designed to compare different plants on the mountain, and this year took the risk of combing the branches of Guatemala's famous Incht estate, pruning the bottom branches so that more nutrients could be supplied to the top branches. Shockingly, this method of combing branches consulted local agricultural technicians in Yunnan, and the answer was that this way is likely to bring additional diseases and insect pests.

The cut branches are expected to reduce production by 50%. If it leads to another outbreak of diseases and insect pests, it is likely to be close to extinction. The failure of the experiment is the same consequence of amputated arms.

May be the shelter of the original forest, this season after combing the plant maturity is extremely high, and did not bring the outbreak of diseases and insect pests.

The way of combing branches is as follows

The picture below shows the hanging state after combing the branches.

In the contrast group, the two main branches were not combed and the fruit maturity was very uneven, so it was difficult to supply so many coffee cherries with nutrients.

Another exciting thing is that because it takes a lot of manpower to harvest all red fruit on a steep slope, no one is willing to harvest it when we double the price. With the significant improvement of maturity, the difficulty of harvest is greatly reduced. If this combing method can be popularized, more farmers can reduce labor consumption and significantly improve maturity.

Katim = not good?

What is planted here is still the Katim variety, which is at the forefront of the variety. The breed was originally developed by a Portuguese research institute and was thought to have overcome the problem of leaf rust. But with the mutation, even though the research institutions in Yunnan have studied Katim more deeply than Portugal, they are still plagued by leaf rust. Although there is no large-scale outbreak, even Katim, who has a strong disease resistance gene, will be infected. And it's not uncommon. Therefore, in Yunnan, where diseases and insect pests are rampant, it is difficult to plant weak ancient varieties. The question is, does Katim really have bad genes?

For the first batch of fresh fruits this year, in order to test the authenticity of the variety theory, whether Katim means the devil tail rhyme mentioned by teacher Han Huaizong in fine coffee, Xiaoquan students specially made a special treatment of washing for eight hours. Try to do less flavor guidance in the post-treatment to restore the flavor of the beans themselves. As a result, there was no so-called devil end rhyme or Katim's special taste in the evaluation of a lot of coffee colleagues.

Perhaps the fault lies not in the variety, but in the lack of scientific and fine planting and treatment in Yunnan.

It's not that God doesn't forgive me, it's that we're not good enough.

Harvest coffee fruit with 20% sugar content

When we go up the mountain, don't look at the red fruit all over the mountain, but after testing, the sugar content is only 13%, and this year's harvest standard is 20% sugar content for harvest.

You can't eat hot tofu in a hurry-and, more importantly, these will be used in the later treatment (a special fructose-rich water washing method was used this year, and a large number of contrast group experiments were done)

What we need for coffee is actually the maturity of the seeds in the coffee fruit, but because it cannot be measured directly, the maturity of the coffee fruit can only be reflected laterally by measuring the sugar content of the pulp, and then through two water flotation in the later stage. through density to screen beans with low average density as seeds are not mature enough.

There are also a lot of interesting things in the follow-up harvest treatment, such as fructose-rich washing, such as the design of ultra-low-cost constant temperature and humidity storage, the whole process can be monitored remotely, and the flotation machine designed by ourselves. Now the detailed manuscript has been written in more than 7,000 words, and there are too many here. There will be a full version of the final bean, which should be serialized on my official account. Let's put a few pictures and let's feel it.

It is not the quality of small grains in Yunnan, but what kind of people this group of coffee people are. How determined you are to make a good product.

Of course, high labor costs are a problem that coffee farmers have to face. But the advantage is that we have the knowledge, the booming Internet of things, and a small number of people who are still willing to get their hands dirty.

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Stakeholders-participate in the whole process to record the story of the producing area. The output is very small and it hasn't been shipped yet so I can't buy it yet. The output this year should be only about one ton. in fact, it doesn't cost much to sell all these beans, and you can't even earn money for air tickets, but I hope more people will know what kind of person is behind good coffee, LXXXVI coffee honor record.