Reporter | Ya Han Xiang
Edit | Xu Yue
Two or three years ago, when Chen Junheng took out a Yunnan bean for the guests to taste, the other party first praised the flavor of the bean, but when he said that it was a bean from Yunnan, there would always be someone who said, "No wonder it is still a little bitter" and "a little bit of Chinese herbal taste".
Junheng Chen is the brand founder of Encore Coffee Yunnan Zhike Coffee Co., Ltd., an international judge of the World Barista Championship, and a certified coffee quality appraiser and assistant tutor of the CQI Global Coffee Quality Society. Whether in the scene of facing consumers or in the international competition, he can be said to have witnessed the whole process of Yunnan coffee's "out of the circle".
"Now, there are still many people who come to look for Yunnan beans." He told Interface News, "And in the barista competition, there are also contestants who start to compete with Yunnan beans and win awards. ”
More intuitively reflected in coffee shops. Starbucks has launched a reserve coffee bean from Yunnan for the fifth consecutive year, Starbucks reserve is the company's high-end product line and development focus; MANNER COFFEE will add coffee beans from yunnan regions to the daily menu, and will occasionally launch different flavors of Yunnan specialty coffee; three and a half, Eagle Set and independent boutique coffee shops in the streets and alleys, etc., have launched a variety of Yunnan products.
Interface News visited Pu'er, the most important coffee producer in Yunnan, in 2018 – China's major coffee growing areas are in Yunnan and Hainan, and Yunnan coffee cultivation accounts for more than 99% of the country's coffee industry. At that time, only brands like Starbucks and Seesaw were looking for specialty coffee beans here and sending people to support them. At that time, in China's first-tier cities, many consumers did not know Yunnan Coffee.
However, in three years, Yunnan Coffee has achieved at least one leap in consumer awareness.
Chen Junheng attributed the impetus to this status quo to the efforts of head brands and production areas. Coffee giants such as Starbucks see the Chinese market as their most important overseas market, so it began to look for localized higher-quality coffee beans here. Since 2012, Starbucks has moved into Pu'er, Yunnan Province, and started a long-term grower support program. On the other hand, the price of fine beans is 2 to 4 times higher than that of agricultural beans, and it is not affected by the futures price, and some coffee farmers have generated motivation for the production of fine beans.
Although the head brand has brought an endorsement effect, its receipt standards are also a challenge for local coffee farmers.
Ye Ping's coffee beans were rejected twice by Starbucks. She is the head of the Yunnan Tianyu Cooperative. In 2018, the co-operative's coffee beans won the first prize in the local green bean contest. Therefore, Ye Ping gave this batch of beans to Starbucks for testing with an attitude of trying, but she did not expect that Starbucks refused to accept it. "At that time, I thought about it, I am a champion, you still don't accept it."
The first reason why coffee farmers think of Starbucks is not the brand aura, but the price. Starbucks said that it will not only buy high-quality coffee beans at a price of 20%-30% higher than the average market price, but also give additional rewards to specialty coffee beans that meet or even exceed Starbucks' procurement standards - it is this boutique bean procurement standard that also makes coffee farmers like Ye Ping constantly hit a wall. The following year, Ye Ping's coffee beans were still rejected because of blemishes and over-fermentation.
Starbucks brought a high threshold of international standards, and at the same time, it also stationed a group of young agronomists and cup surveyors, becoming the first local technicians to provide free training and support to coffee farmers. The Yunnan Grower Support Center, which they form, provides training for coffee farmers in seedling raising, planting, cup testing, processing and so on. Subsequently, more and more coffee brands also opened the Yunnan coffee plan, cooperated with specific estates, and began to cooperate at the source of planting to ensure that the quality of the final coffee beans met the standards. By the end of August 2021, these agronomists had trained nearly 28,000 coffee farmers
Although different brands are launching coffee from Yunnan, the model between different brands is also different. Brands such as Starbucks and Seesaw work directly with estates and farmers to send agronomists to help, while manner sets up bean collection stations in Yunnan, directly buys coffee beans that meet its standards, and regularly hosts events. Luckin Coffee works with local supplier Torch, which is also responsible for local training, green bean handling, roasting and supply.
"Models like Starbucks are really working for the progress of the entire coffee industry." Chen Junheng told Interface News, "In fact, Yunnan coffee can not change much in a short period of time in the variety of coffee beans (the local widely grown katim coffee variety, its resistance to pests and natural conditions is extremely high), but in the processing method and fine management of the manor can bring more quality improvement and added value to Yunnan coffee." ”
In addition to the promotion of head brands and production areas, the "out of the circle" of Yunnan coffee is also the result of market pressure.
Yu Chao is the co-founder of the chain coffee brand Double Win, and he uses Yunnan beans in both cold brew and hand punch products. "The quality of Yunnan coffee beans in the past two years has gradually increased, and the flavor has also begun to remove the previous bad flavor, reflecting more high-quality flavors." He told Interface News.
Under the epidemic situation, the arrival cycle of Yunnan coffee beans is also a reason for his preference. Due to the epidemic situation abroad and other reasons, there is more uncertainty about importing foreign coffee beans. "But this situation will not occur in Yunnan coffee beans, and the stability of the supply is very important for small chain cafes like us." Yu Chao said.
"In the early days of the epidemic, beans from overseas could not come in." Chen Junheng also mentioned this layer of factors, "In addition to the Colombian Coffee Association and Colombian Customs through various efforts to make the coffee beans in this production area can be exported more smoothly, other production areas are affected." Coupled with the successive increases in futures prices, this also makes Yunnan coffee pay attention. ”
In addition, the emergence of new consumer brands and the rise of investment in the consumer field, coupled with events such as "Xinjiang cotton", have deepened consumers' sense of identification with Chinese brands, and Yunnan coffee, the "national tide" in the coffee field, has gradually stood in the middle.
For the fifth consecutive year, Starbucks has launched a selection of Yunnan coffee beans, three and a half meals to set up a series number "7" for Yunnan coffee; MANNER also replaced the poster at the door with Yunnan Menglian passion fruit wine flavored coffee beans... Even many consumers who are not familiar with the origin and flavor of coffee will choose the "Yunnan" they are most familiar with in Colombia, Ethiopia and Yunnan.
But behind the bustle, Yunnan coffee is still obstructed and long.
At present, fine beans only account for about 5% of coffee cultivation in Yunnan. For most farmers, coffee is just one of the crops, and they have cut down coffee trees and planted fruits because of the cyclical low market price of coffee. If coffee cultivation is stripped away from gentlemanliness and commercial sentiment, it originally belonged to only one of the traditional cultivation industries. For any economy in the world, the scale of agricultural development is always the first.
"The development of specialty coffee is not necessarily the first choice for large production areas, and how to improve the quality of commercial coffee is more favored," Chen Junheng said. Therefore, in a sense, specialty coffee sales cannot be the only criterion for measuring the coffee industry in Yunnan. Although in the world coffee production rankings, it still does not stand in the top ten positions. However, the number of high-quality development is the key to the development of Yunnan coffee.
The local government mentioned in the "Yunnan Coffee Industry Development Investigation and Reflection" that the goal of building a high-end and boutique brand of coffee products in Yunnan is to be built. The significance of specialty coffee for Yunnan may be from the technical upgrading of some processes such as planting, picking, processing, storage and so on - specialty coffee cannot achieve scale, but it can promote the quality improvement of the entire industry. Whether coffee farmers grow large-scale commercial beans or small batches of fine beans, improving quality and enriching market choices is a more sustainable model.
"For the purpose of hype and marketing, there are a lot of various coffees coming up right now. But if Yunnan coffee wants to go out to form a brand and scale, the first premise is still quality, no matter how to do business and marketing, but you can't escape the two words of quality. Aaron Tong, head of Starbucks' "Yunnan Star Program," told Interface News.
When the coffee industry "inner volume" and the Yunnan coffee story are over-packaged, the large-scale upgrading of the production area may be the key to the second half of Yunnan coffee.
In addition to the entry of starbucks and other head brands, we predict that more brands will go deep into Yunnan to cooperate with local estates. As investment institutions and coffee brands once said in an interview with Interface News, the core competitiveness of the supply chain has become the key to the competition in the coffee industry.
When capital frantically enters the coffee industry, some coffee brands will also begin to shift upstream to the supply chain in addition to focusing on store expansion, and Yunnan is bound to become their first choice. Only when Yunnan coffee is not becoming the halo star in the "national tide" story, but the habit of Chinese consumers' coffee consumption, it has really achieved an upgrade.