The difference of taste and flavor between Katim and Tippika Coffee in Yunnan

Introduction of Iron pickup Coffee beans

The so-called new variety actually refers to catimor (Katimo), which is the hybrid of timor and Arabica of the Roberta family. Compared with the old variety, it lacks rich aroma and taste, and has a relatively shallow smell of grass and soil, but it has the advantages of resistance to diseases and insect pests, easy to manage, large yield, and its yield per mu can reach up to 350kg raw beans, which is more than twice that of the old variety.

So when Nestl é succeeded in promoting high-yield new varieties in Pu'er in the 1990s, brown farmers in Baoshan area also cut down old varieties and changed them to new ones. With a round of coffee expansion, new varieties are increasing and old varieties are decreasing day by day. Finally, today's situation: the old varieties have almost been cut down, and the little ones that survived are all "old, weak, sick and disabled". Most of the trees are more than 20 years old. For a long time, the output and quality are not as good as going back and forth to the village of Zhang Bao's younger brother on another high mountain. Several hills nearby are coffee gardens in their village, but at present there are only two mu of old varieties in the village. Fortunately, this family still looks healthy because it is well managed, and it is still in the harvest period. I saw the ripe red fruit of coffee. After discussing with the owner, we decided to buy back 10 kilograms of raw beans and taste them. The fruits just picked at the end of last year are still preserved in the warehouse in the form of shell beans. The next morning we shelled and processed together. After shelling, there were 18.5 kilograms of raw beans of different sizes. There were many broken beans, adzuki beans and bad beans. After drying, there were still many defective beans, so we chose them by hand on the spot. After the final selection, there are still 9 kilograms of qualified ones left-- and by this time most of the morning has passed. Of course, if it is used to make instant coffee or general commercial beans, high-yield catimor is a good choice, but if you want to look for Yunnan specialty coffee, then the old variety of iron pickup has become the first choice because of its congenital excellent genes. Therefore, this trip to Yunnan also followed the trail of the old varieties. But the reality is really cruel. Before going, Brother Zou told me that there was an old variety in his relative's house, but what he saw excitedly was a crazy growing coffee forest, which belonged to his aunt because his aunt was not old enough to plant and renovate-- so these old varieties survived, but the aunt was unable to manage it alone, so he left the tree to grow naturally and pick some fruit when it matured to trace its roots. Typica, which originated from Ethiopia, is the earliest original species of coffee. Bourbon is a variety of typica. Both of them have rich aroma and excellent taste performance, and they also belong to very high quality varieties in Arabica. It is said that the coffee tree species that was first introduced into Zhukula in Yunnan is typica. When coffee was planted on a large scale in Baoshan area in the 1950s, it was also typica and bourbon. But the problem is that although these two varieties have excellent taste, they are not resistant to diseases and insect pests, are prone to leaf rust, and the yield per mu is relatively low, so corresponding to this, there are "new varieties".

When it comes to Yunnan coffee, perhaps the most common word we hear is "Yunnan small-grain coffee", and most of them will say "Yunnan small-grain coffee-fragrant but not bitter, strong but not strong", so many people classify the varieties of Yunnan coffee as "small-grain species". The evaluation of the taste of Yunnan coffee is naturally "fragrant but not bitter, strong but not strong". Regardless of whether it is correct or not, there is no word "small seed" among the more than 900 named coffee varieties at present, so this "small seed" is not strictly a coffee variety, it is just a nickname given to this variety by the people of Yunnan. In fact, the name of Yunnan "small grain coffee" should be arabica--typica (Arabica-iron pickup) or arabica--bourbon (Arabica-bourbon).