Coffee in Zhukula Village, Yunnan Coffee Culture in China

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.