About this coffee…

Banka farm and washing station was originally developed by Mr. Hu, a native of Yunnan, who has been producing coffee in Menglian for almost 20 years. He was one of the first farmers to engage in large scale coffee production in the County, working in partnership with Nestle and the local government. Mr. Hu is held in high esteem within the local area, employing hundreds of harvesters from various ethnic groups across his farms each year.

In 2018, Yunnan Coffee Traders (YCT) took over the management of the Banka wet mill and a portion of the Banka farm, some 100 hectares of land, installing one of the region’s first optical sorters, experimenting with processing methods such as yeast fermentation and trialing new varieties such as Pacamara and Yellow Bourbon. Banka farm produces both the company’s volume washed specialty lots, as well as natural and honey process micro lots.

Coffee was first cultivated in China in the late 1800s on a small scale, introduced by French missionaries in Yunnan. Production at scale didn’t take off for nearly 100 years, despite government initiatives back in the 1960s. It was in 1988, as part of another government-led project assisted by the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank, that coffee began to be commercially produced for export through companies such as Nestle.

The focus on specialty is relatively recent, with the past decade seeing smaller coffee farms and producers improving their knowledge and skills e.g. processing techniques to produce better quality coffee. Yunnan province - a mountainous and fertile land in the south west of China, is responsible for over 97% of China’s coffee production. Over half of this production is concentrated around Pu’er – a region famous for centuries old tradition of tea. The people of Yunnan are a hugely diverse mix of different cultures and languages, with most of China’s officially recognised 56 different ethnic groups residing here. It’s not just diverse in terms of the variety of its people either, the region also boasts a vast array of flora and fauna (including elephants and tigers), snow-capped mountains, deep valleys, vast plateaus, subtropical jungles, beautiful lakes and majestic rivers (including the mighty Mekong).

More about the processing:

1 . Harvest: Coffee cherries are hand harvested from Banka farm and nearby villages.

2 . Pulping & Fermenting: The coffee cherry is pulped to remove the skin, fruit and mucilage. The remaining coffee (parchment) is dry-fermented for 18 hours.

3 . Sorting: Next, they are run through narrow channels of flowing water to sort the parchment coffee by density.

4 . Drying: The parchment coffee is spread out on drying patios for approximately 5-8 days.

Country: China

Region: Yunnan

Process: Washed

Varietal: Catimor, P3/P4

Altitude: 1350 masl

Flavours: Fuji apple (a very sweet apple), Yuzu (it’s like a lemon) & Demerara sugar (similar to brown sugar)