Yunnan Coffee Boutique Road

For quite a long time, Yunnan coffee, which is called "comparable to Blue Mountain" in the industry, does not have the taste of Yunnan. It may belong to Starbucks' leisure, or it may be kneaded into the island to boil out the flavor of Brazil, Colombia or Japan, but it does not belong to Yunnan.

Even now, this situation is still common. However, it is gratifying to note that Aixing Group, which has been involved in the field of coffee for nearly 20 years, is building its brand; Mai Tianyuan's coffee beans, a veteran of Yunnan coffee, are still popular online at more than 500 yuan / kg; in the "everyone's Coffee Book Bar" by Zhang Shineng, founder of Yunnan Coffee Network, the reporter also saw that the highest price is not imports, but Yunnan's iron truck Yunnan coffee is returning to Yunnan flavor.

Go through a hundred years of road

In 1773, the first British stock exchange was established at the Jonathan Cafe in Chais Hutong, London. History has always been strikingly similar, and 20 years later, Tondy Cafe was completed on Wall Street and became the predecessor of the New York Stock Exchange. The history of coffee can not be explained in a few words, it is inextricably related to stocks and war.

Although the history of coffee in Yunnan is longer than that of coffee and stock, it has a history of more than a hundred years. In Binchuan, Dali, there is a small mountain village called Zhukula, and the whole village is almost full of coffee trees. In 1892, coffee seeds brought by French missionaries from abroad took root here.

Today, some of the coffee plants produced by this batch of coffee seeds are still blooming and bearing fruit. Although Jukula's coffee is only for priests, the local villagers also fell in love with the priest. To this day, coffee is still given to guests at home in this remote rural area of the southwest.

In Yunnan, coffee has its ups and downs in different periods, but coffee has never left Yunnan. The cafe run by a single Vietnamese woman in Jinma Biji Square was still full of customers until the 1980s. The scene of wearing slippers and yawning to drink coffee early in the morning still lingers in some memories of old Kunming.

In 1988, in order to reduce the impact of South American coffee planting base on coffee prices, Nestl é turned its attention to Yunnan, so Yunnan coffee had the taste of Nestle. In recent years, Shangdao, Maxwell and Starbucks have settled in. With the rise of local processing enterprises represented by Gu Coffee, the coffee planting area in Yunnan began to grow significantly, from 390000 mu to more than 1 million mu today. Yunnan only took 4 years. However, with the expansion of the scale, the coffee in Yunnan is less Yunnan-like.

The return of taste

The stimulation of multinational enterprise groups and the rise of local processing enterprises have brought about the rapid growth of coffee acreage in Yunnan, but instant coffee in Yunnan is still an unpopular "child" in the market. although some local cafes operate earlier than Starbucks, they are still deserted.

"at present, Yunnan coffee is comparable to Blue Mountain Coffee in quality, including our climatic conditions, latitude, altitude and environment, which are similar to those of Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee, but their popularity is far from Blue Mountain Coffee." The deputy secretary-general of Yunnan Coffee Industry Association said that if Yunnan coffee wants to have a say in the international arena, it needs to take the path of Blue Mountain Coffee, build its own popularity and improve the quality of Yunnan coffee.

Zhang Shineng, founder of Yunnan Coffee Network, believes that the quality of Yunnan coffee is "comparable to that of Blue Mountain", so he does not support more Yunnan coffee to make instant. In the "everyone's Coffee Book Bar" founded by Xinzhi Book City, he did not see the Blue Mountain, but the price of the "old tree iron truck" with Yunnan characteristics is the highest, but there are still many people who admire it or come to taste it repeatedly. "Coffee beans produced by Pu'er can be sold for 220 yuan a cup in Lijiang, which has also won the reputation of consumers for its quality. Yunnan coffee has a bright future in taking the boutique route."

"the profit of instant coffee is only 1% Mur5% per kilogram, while the profit of fine coffee is generally between 50% and 100%, or even higher." In Zhang Shineng's view, cafes, including Shangdao and Starbucks, are actually catering to public tastes and are not really boutique coffee, and now more and more people will be willing to order a cup of authentic local coffee without sugar and cream, but only authentic Yunnan flavor, which confirms his idea of opening 100 "everyone's Coffee Book Coffee bars" in the next five years.

At the same time, Aidan Group, which has been involved in the coffee field for nearly 20 years, is also improving and enriching coffee varieties and improving coffee planting and processing technology. to promote high-quality, high-quality coffee brands to the domestic and international markets to promote the faster development of Yunnan coffee industry.

In real life, local cafes like "1%", which take the boutique route, are being recognized by more and more people. The coffee beans of Mai Tianyuan, an experienced coffee person in Yunnan, are still popular because of their excellent quality. Not only that, Jin Jihui, the owner of the "1%" cafe, scored 85 points on the cups of SCAA and COI (one of the world's most authoritative professional coffee institutions) in the United States for his Yunnan "Phoenix" coffee. The beans with amazing aroma and taste can get 85 points.

When more and more people in the circle pay attention to the road of Yunnan coffee, Yunnan coffee may no longer be far away from the taste of Yunnan. Photographic report by reporter Yin Lei

(responsible Editor: Leo)