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Developing speciality coffee may not be the only Zeal for New Varieties vs. Drop of Coffee flavor. Likewise, it is impossible to integrate amazing
way out for Yunnan coffee, but it is an option to take many Business flavor, disease resistance and high yield in one variety. In
farmers out of the current plight and improve their in- Baoshan with seven decades of “old variety” planting
come. Per Southern People Weekly, compared to coffee Master Hou once said, “Chinese farmers are tough history, local coffee farmers told us that new varieties are
origins in South and Central America, Africa and Southeast and open-minded. They are always ready to learn and now mushrooming everywhere, including Geisha, Catur-
Asia, Yunnan’s labor costs are five or six times higher. change, as long as they find actual value.” The first step ra, Ethiopia Heirloom, Sarchimor and S288, to name a few.
This means a limited profit margin for ordinary Yunnan to produce good quality coffee is to select and breed the Master Hou also shared a story with us on the road.
farmers if they sell coffee at the price of the coffee futures right varieties. In Yunnan, many farmers are exploring Some years ago, blinded by the good market of Typica, a
market. If the price is not decent in the year, they may new varieties; among the little plants in the farm, there coffee farmer only planted the variety. Despite the low
end up losing every penny. The price of commercial-grade may be one seed coming from a famous coffee origin on yield of single plant, the high price of Typica led to a good
Yunnan green beans has been hovering around 30 yuan the other side of the planet. Estate owners excitedly income in the harvest year. Unexpectedly, a severe frost
per kilo, while new record highs of prices occur every showed us the Typicavarietyhere, the Caturra one there hit next year, affecting all his treasured Typica plants and
year. For example, a Geisha shot to the highest bid of 2,000 and we even saw some Geisha coffees. These new varieties making it impossible to get income for the next few years.
dollars per LB for the Best of Panama in 2022. However, represent future hope and wealth for the owners, although Therefore, many farmers understand that it is a slow
the rapidly emerging domestic market for specialty coffee this future may be at least a decade later. business, and they shall never rashly replace all the old
has brought unprecedented opportunities and demand for Compared to other crops, coffee is delicate and varieties with new ones.
Yunnan coffee, and coffee farmers are willing to invest time-consuming. Even in the ideal scenario, it takes three This is not always the case. Coffee producers with
more time and effort in growing coffee with higher qual- to four years for a plant to fruit. A new variety taking root original capital accumulation and scaled planting tend to
ity for a higher pay. in a new land does not mean the replica of the original have a more certain stance in the attempts of new varie-
ties. For example, Lincang Autumn Amber (Qiupo) Estate,
the champion of the 2022 Best of Yunnan Green Coffee
Competition, selected Castillo, Sarchimor and Geisha as
its trademark new varieties after years-long cooperation
with local professional institutes. On a rainy day, we hiked
Lincang Autumn Amber (Qiupo) Estate up to a planting base of Autumn Amber Estate, a hillside
with an average altitude of 1700m where patches of Sar-
chimor seedlings are planted. In addition to Typica and
Sarchimor, Geisha has fetched the highest bid prices in
recent years, becoming a favorite of local farms. In this
wave of new varieties experiment, the far-sighted local
government will of course not be absent. After twen-
ty-one years of research, the Yunnan Academy of Agri-
cultural Sciences announced in October the launch of the
new varieties “Yunka No.1” and “Yunka No.2”. Nestlé
began its research of new varieties in 2008, and is expect-
ed to release results in 2025.
Not all farmers are happy to make the attempt and
wait for an uncertain future. Anyone who has been to
Yunnan will be impressed by the bounty of the land. It is
a place for so many crops, and mushroom hunters in some
areas can just make a good living in the wild. It is said
that, to an ordinary farmer in Yunnan, only about ten
crops are less cost effective than coffee! In Pu’er, we met
the first batch of coffee farmers who recalled that they
earned 150 yuan per mu of corn and 2,000 yuan per mu
of coffee in 1995. No doubt, they shaved off all the corn
to plant coffee. However, thirty years later, farmers in
Baoshan could earn 70,000 yuan per mu of tomatoes in a
year, but that of coffee was only 3,000 yuan. It makes
sense that such a huge profit gap would guide more farm-
ers to give up coffee plants with low ROI.

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