The History of Coffee in China the Biography of Coffee in Zhukula Village, Yunnan Province

When it comes to the history of Chinese coffee, we have to mention Yunnan Dali Zhukula Coffee, which plays a vital role in the history of Chinese coffee. The ancient coffee forest in Zhukula Village is a unique variety of small-grain coffee in Yunnan, which is very rare and of excellent quality, so it can be called the "living fossil" of Chinese coffee. We went to explore the century-old coffee legend of Zhukula village.

Zhu Kula, located in the depths of the mountains in the northeast of Pingchuan Town, Binchuan County, Yunnan Province, is the junction of Chuxiong, Dali and Lijiang, surrounded by the Yupao River, a tributary of the Jinsha River. Due to inconvenient transportation, Zhu Kula is almost isolated from the rest of the world, so it is a little-known Yi shanzhai.

Local Tan Jialin said: "the reason why the 13 mu ancient coffee forest in Zhukula area is listed as the oldest coffee forest in China is that it has 24 ancient coffee trees more than 100 years old, all of which are pure Yunnan small-grain coffee. Its superior quality is very rare. It is the ancestor of Chinese coffee, especially Yunnan small-grain coffee, and has extremely high scientific research value and industrial development value."

Yunnan has a long history of growing coffee and has a unique climate advantage. Yunnan small grain coffee has the characteristics of strong but not bitter, fragrant but not greasy, slightly sour and so on. According to the International Coffee Organization, Yunnan small-grain coffee is similar to Colombian small-grain coffee in quality, and its products are highly competitive in the market. At present, 95% of China's coffee raw materials are produced in Yunnan. Therefore, Yunnan's coffee industry has a far-reaching impact on the development of China's coffee industry.

Zhukula Village is located on the hillside of the Yupao River, surrounded by green coffee forests. At this time, the clear sunshine of late autumn is shining warmly on the whole mountain village, as if it had been plated with a layer of gold, and there is still mist on the top of the hills. this is Zhu Kula, which is regarded as a paradise.

Walking into the village of Zhukula, a unique aroma of coffee came. It turns out that after a hundred years of edification, drinking coffee has long become a living habit of the local Yi villagers. Villager Qi Fenghua said that men and women, young and old, all like to drink coffee, grind themselves with iron pots and grind themselves. However, the coffee processing process is kept secret, no wife, no daughter.

After drinking the original, simple coffee, we approached what is known as the oldest coffee forest in China. At this time, the ancient coffee trees have produced clusters of coffee beans, although they will not mature until next month, but some of them will show bright red. Qi Fenghua said that this forest is considered to be the oldest ancient coffee forest in China. There are 1134 plants in 13 mu, 24 of which have a history of more than 100 years, which were introduced and planted by French missionaries when they built a church in Zhu Kula in 1892.

In 1892, French Catholic missionaries left such a legend. He entered the Zhukula missionary, built a local church and introduced the habit of drinking coffee to the village of Zhukula. He personally planted a coffee forest and taught local villagers to grow, drink and sell coffee. From then on, the local villagers began to grow, grind and drink their own coffee, which continues to this day.

Li Fusheng, an 86-year-old villager from Zhu Kula village, said: "the coffee was planted by Father Tian for 117 years. I remember when there was a house high. There was a shed like this, and the roots were not as big as this."

Old man Li Fusheng is the first president of the village. The old man witnessed the history of coffee trees in Zhukula village. In 1948, President Li Fusheng launched the villagers to plant coffee on a large scale, which once grew to more than 80 mu, but a heavy snow in 1983 froze the coffee trees far away from the village to death. The 13 mu coffee trees around the village basically survived, with only 1134 left.

Ms. Huang Shuyun, a cultural scholar in Yunnan Province, said: "A Malaysian coffee expert once said that if you keep the old varieties of coffee in Yunnan, you will keep the status of Chinese coffee in the history of coffee in the world. Zhukula Coffee belongs to Yunnan small-grained Bobang Iron pickup Coffee, this kind of coffee is already very rare in Yunnan, so it is necessary for us to protect and develop it. "

In recent years, the local government is also fully aware of the importance of the protection and development of ancient coffee varieties in Yunnan, and regards coffee as a key industry for protection and development. The finance of Binchuan County allocates 100000 yuan of support funds every year to build the brand of "Zhu Kula century-old coffee". Yang Tiwu, director of the Economic Office of Pingchuan Town, is also resident in Zhukula Village to raise seedlings as a technician of seedling breeding of Zhukula Coffee. He said: "when we get to Zhukula Village, first, we should do a good job in the irrigation ditch (canal) of ancient coffee; second, we should control the diseases and insect pests of ancient coffee; and third, we should do a good job of pruning and interrupting to protect ancient coffee. On this basis, the next step is to do a good job in breeding. "

Now this pure old variety of coffee has been growing for seven months, and by next year, these seedlings can be provided to villagers in three nearby villages for planting free of charge. At that time, for every mu of coffee trees that survive, the villagers will be subsidized to plant 500 yuan to promote the development of the ancient coffee industry and let the descendants of the ancient coffee trees reproduce from generation to generation. For this, Qi Fenghua is also full of confidence in leading the villagers to increase their income and become rich.