American media: China is catching up with the coffee trend Yunnan farmers abandon tea to grow coffee

American media said that when it comes to hot drinks, China has been a tea-drinking country for a long time. But VOA correspondent Bill Eddard reports that Chinese interest in another drink is seeping into small restaurants in the city, and farms in the south are turning to more profitable crops.

Coffee shops can be found everywhere in big cities in China, according to a report on the VOA radio website on December 10. It is estimated that the consumption of coffee here is on the rise, which is seven times the world average.

Lu Ming, the coffee drinker, said: "they are still used to it. For example, if they are sleepy in the morning, they may buy a cup of coffee before going to work, and then they will come to the cafe to buy one in the afternoon if they are sleepy."

As more and more people drink coffee, some people see an opportunity to grow coffee beans in China.

Mr. Xue, the man who drinks coffee, said: "everyone will know after drinking coffee for a long time that fast sales have something to do with the channel." It feels that the channels for growing coffee in China are not so common. So generally speaking, like the coffee we drink here, it is probably a foreign channel.

Most of China's coffee is grown in the southern province of Yunnan. A century ago, a French missionary brought the plant there. But it wasn't until recently that coffee began to be cultivated. Swiss food giant Nestl é has been working with farmers in Yunnan for more than 20 years, hoping to develop a sustainable green coffee industry to improve the yield and quality of Arabica beans grown here.

In Puer, which is famous for its spicy black tea, Nestl é has a service station and a coffee center. To be managed by Huth.

The biggest challenge, he says, is how to educate farmers.

Mr. Huang, manager of Nestle Agricultural Service Station, said: "Coffee is a new crop. How to grow coffee? How to cultivate small plants? This is only part of it. The next step is how to produce high-quality coffee, because it is completely different from tea. "

Huth's team works with more than 2600 coffee farmers in Poole and Xishuangbanna. Some of them were hired on a bumpy dirt road like this. Huang Dabao is a coffee farmer. He used to grow fruit. He says the coffee harvest is a better choice and more profitable, financing new homes for homes.

Mr. Huang, a coffee farmer, said, "We used to grow oranges, but they were so unreliable." When we start planting, we can't foresee the harvest, but there are some similarities in fruit planting. Unlike fruit, coffee is more reliable. "

Coffee cultivation in Yunnan, China's poorest province, has proved to be a more profitable option. Unlike other crops, the pricing of coffee in the international market is more transparent and determined, and farmers can also monitor it closely. But because tea is still a competitor, some people with land and resources are looking for multiple ways to grow coffee and tea at the same time.