"Leye Zou Zhuyuan" by the Coffee Prince of Taiwan

Abstract: the prince's "Leye Zou Zhuyuan" is located 1200 meters above sea level in Alishan Township, which used to be his father's tea garden, where he now grows coffee, tea, orchids and runs a camping business. His coffee has won awards year after year in Taiwan competitions, and when it is not in the top spot, it basically fluctuates among the top three and top five, and its quality is stable and outstanding.

Photo Source: fragrant Coffee

Zou Zhuyuan

His appearance reveals the dark and sturdy nature of a laborer, with the diligence and plain growing up in the mountains, as well as the intelligence, patience, good thinking and strong execution of an excellent operator. As for us curious and annoying outsiders, he answered every question without reservation. When he mentioned which kind of coffee, he immediately showed it to us and asked us to take pictures. When asked about how to deal with it, he went to great lengths to start from the beginning. He wrote on facebook: "you have to repeat the knowledge of post-coffee processing and so on dozens of times a day, and the way of preaching is also quite cool!"

The prince's "Leye Zou Zhuyuan" is located 1200 meters above sea level in Alishan Township, which used to be his father's tea garden, where he now grows coffee, tea, orchids and runs a camping business. His coffee has won awards year after year in Taiwan competitions, and when it is not in the top spot, it basically fluctuates among the top three and top five, and its quality is stable and outstanding. This is now his coffee kingdom.

In Zou Chuyuan, his father planted tea in his early years. In 1997, his father began to grow coffee in the mood of giving it a try. Because the coffee was slow to bear fruit, four years later, when Politics came back from Taipei, the coffee just bore fruit. With curiosity, he began to study coffee. In 2007, Taiwan held the first coffee competition in history, and Fang Zhenglun, who thought he was still a "layman" among many coffee people, unexpectedly got the first place.

"my treatment at that time was not that good, but with the advantage of producing area, the quality of beans was good enough, and there were not too many defects in production to win the first place. But the technology at that time was much worse than it is now. " In fact, in 2007, the cultivation and processing of coffee in Taiwan was far from what it is today, but the victory of this competition had a personal significance: this little sense of honor boosted his confidence and began to feel that coffee was an industry worth studying, and he had an advantage.

After winning the championship, Fang Zhenglun thought for a long time: I must be right to deal with coffee like this in the future. However, in the next 2008, 2009 and 10 years, when he was completely dropped out of the 10th place in the Taiwan coffee competition, he gradually realized that the environment was changing, the industry was improving, and stagnation was a retreat. So since 2012, he has devoted himself to the post-processing of coffee beans. He said that when he first came into contact with the sun and honey treatment, he used the production parameters of a Hawaiian master, but the beans were all bad. It turned out that the parameters of hot Hawaii from the island climate did not apply to Alishan, which had a cool climate. If we want to break through the bottleneck of post-processing system, we must adjust measures to local conditions.

"that's why no one dares to write a book about coffee beans!" Han Huaizong, a fellow teacher, said, "it is too complicated, and there are many variables. If you dry the coffee in Alishan for 10 days, it may be ready in five days in the ancient pit 400 meters above sea level." Experience cannot be applied, and you have to explore it on your own. "

In addition to constant experiments, Fang Zhenglun has another way to test the results, that is, to continue to participate in the competition. "the competition can assess whether your production process is correct, which is very important. It plays a corrective role. For example, if you send two kinds of sun-dried beans to the competition, one time is long and the other is short, and you will get a point through the competition. You will know which method is better. This time you have grasped the time link, and next time you will grasp another link, and over time you may find the most suitable way to deal with your manor. " All the competitions are selected blindly, and the judges' sense of taste and smell is more professional, so coffee beans can be judged as objectively as possible and come up with a quantitative standard with reference value.

At the competition at the end of last year, Fang Zhenglun unexpectedly sent eight beans to participate in the competition: two of the four washed beans were fermented with enzymes and two kinds of anhydrous fermentation; each was divided into natural drying and machine drying; two pieces of honey were treated with yellow honey and red honey; two branches of sunlight, one kind of direct drying, and one kind of fruit was first crushed and then dried.

He even quietly put the yellow honey into the washing group, but no one noticed it and was praised, which shows that his honey treatment has reached the cleanliness of washed beans (if there is the smell of wine fermentation in the sun, the score will drop). On the other hand, the "crushing and re-drying" of the sun group also got a higher score, and this method can shorten the length of the sun in the production, "so my sun beans will be crushed before drying in the future." He said.

"this is the most interesting part of coffee. Coffee is a crop that varies with climate, soil and altitude. This variety grows this flavor in this country, but in a different growing environment, you may find some unique flavors. You can't know without testing it yourself. "

Zou Zhuyuan's coffee involves a complete process of planting, processing, baking, and extraction, which is the so-called "from seed to cup." Fang Zhenglun thinks that he is not a master in baking and extraction, but he needs to know the basic principles and methods of roasting and extraction. to stabilize the flavor of coffee beans. Because for a coffee farm, the stability of coffee beans is very important, so that your flavor characteristics can be recognized and remembered by the outside world, and clearly conveyed to the shop owner and guests. He says that's why some foreign estates have been doing the same treatment for years. "they operate according to the same SOP (Standard Operation Procedure, standard operating procedure) from the manor to the factory, and the flavor is relatively the same, but Taiwan is still in the research stage, and everyone is trying different treatments, causing flavor fluctuations," he says with a laugh. "so this drink may be different from the next one."

Knowing that we were coming, Fang Zhenglun specially made some beans for us to understand, including washing, tanning and honey treatment, and invited us to have a try. After drinking four kinds of beans: ordinary washing, enzyme washing, honey treatment and sun drying, everyone was particularly amazed at his sun beans.

He explained that many coffee producing areas are used to using over-ripe and not-so-good coffee beans for sun treatment, while good ones are reserved for traditional washing. Bean farmers believe that bad beans do not need to be peeled and directly dried. Therefore, the sun often gives people a bad impression, and the wine is too fermented. Zou Zhuyuan uses high-quality coffee beans to make sun beans, always in the top three, with excellent cleanliness and thickness. it tastes sweet and fruity.

Teacher Han Huaizong said that in 2013, Taiwan invited the former director of SCAA to host the International Coffee Forum. On that day, he was asked to comment on six Taiwanese coffees. As soon as he finished drinking, he called Zou Zhuyuan's suntan a champion. "he said he was surprised that the suntan in Taiwan was so clean and beautiful, not to mention the exquisite suntan of Ethiopia."

After the trial drink, we snapped up all the coffee in the store, but it was still not enough, so he had to bake another batch the next day and drive to our next destination.

Sweet wine flavor of coffee beans, this is the flavor that Fang Zhenglun most wants to produce, and that is the taste of sun beans. "fermentation is also a chemical change," he said. "over a long period of time, it will smell like sweet wine, and the longer it grows, the more like spirits, and then it will become sour and mixed-smelling, which needs to be studied constantly."

Before we arrived, Fang Zhenglun had just returned from the coffee producing area of Central America and had a good harvest. He saw the processing facilities, operation methods, and the handling of the manor there. In the future, he wants to be a medium-and large-scale washing plant, which is not available in Taiwan at present. In addition, he has brought back new varieties of coffee that are rare or not found in Taiwan. Sharp bourbon and Costa Rican rose have already sprouted, and other seeds are about to be planted. "as long as they sprout, there will be offspring, and you will have a finished product in two or three years. If I can give priority to determining the flavor of certain varieties in this respect, I will have one more experience and knowledge. "

At that time, we had just finished Zou Zhuyuan's Zou style dinner, chatted in the night full of fireflies, and after a while we moved under the Arbor with a huge beehive overhead. The weather was cool and there were no mosquitoes. Maybe in two or three years, we could come here again.