Pu'er: Characteristic agriculture in mountainous areas helps coffee to enhance flavor and color

Yunnan Pu'er is a well-known "hometown of Pu'er tea" in China, and in recent years, it has been in the forefront
of coffee planting area and output.
Under the influence of various measures such as market consumption-driven, international standards, trading centers, and policy insurance, coffee has become a business card
for Pu'er rural revitalization, mass income increase and cultural and tourism integration.
However, the coffee industry in Pu'er and even Yunnan still needs to break the bottleneck in terms of intensive processing, variety breeding, planting management, etc
.
, and the road to the fragrant world of Chinese coffee is arduous.

The coffee industry is developing in an orderly manner

Pu'er City, Yunnan Province is the hometown of Pu'er tea, and its good ecological environment is a golden area
suitable for coffee growth.
Coffee and tea have different product forms and consumption cultures
.
In the early days of reform and opening up, only more than 100 acres of coffee
were planted sporadically in Pu'er City.
At the end of the 80s of the twentieth century, the local area began to cultivate
coffee as a backbone industry with advantages in adjusting the industrial structure and increasing farmers' income.
With the sound improvement of the whole industrial chain, small coffee beans release the huge energy of mountains and villages
.
In Pu'er, many farmers grow tea and coffee at the same time, harvest coffee in autumn and winter, and pick tea to make tea the following spring.

In Menglian County, Pu'er City, in the 2021-2022 season, the coffee industry increased the income of the local people by 266 million yuan
.
Nanu, a poverty-alleviated Lahu ethnic group in Paliang Village, Mengma Town, Menglian County, planted 18 acres of coffee, and earned more than 70,000 yuan
from the sale of coffee cherries.

Driven by the market and driven by policies, the Pu'er coffee industry has developed in an orderly manner, cultivated a number of well-known brands such as Ailing, Beigui, Manya, and Ole, and initially created a number of modern leisure experience sightseeing coffee estates
.
"In the past, the company exported more than 6,000 tons of coffee beans
every year.
Since last year, the beans have been sold domestically, orders have been full, and baked bean products
have been developed.
Yang Chunhong, general manager of Pu'er Ole Coffee Co.
, Ltd.
, said that the growing demand and imaginative space to be developed are the biggest industrial outlets
.

In recent years, despite several rounds of price fluctuations, Yunnan has always regarded coffee as a characteristic agriculture in mountainous areas, not only increasing the planting area and expanding the industrial layout, but also promoting intensive processing, brand building and other work, becoming the largest province
in coffee cultivation in China.
Among them, the achievements of decades of perseverance in Puer City have been reflected, the planting area has increased, the yield and processing level have been steadily improved, and in 2012, the China Fruit Circulation Association awarded Puer the title
of "China's Coffee Capital".
In 2021, the planting area of Pu'er coffee reached 668,000 mu, with an output of 46,000 tons, and more than 300,000 mu
of coffee were planted in neighboring countries such as Myanmar and Laos.

Zhang Xiong, deputy director of the Puer Tea and Coffee Industry Development Center, introduced that last year the comprehensive output value of coffee in Puer City was 2.
78 billion yuan, with 11 industrial enterprises above designated size, 412 coffee primary processing plants, nearly 250,000 coffee farmers, Nestle, Starbucks, Wall and other long-term business cooperation in Puer, and also formed four coffee industry belts
in Simao-Ninger, Lancang-Menglian - Western League, Jiangcheng-Mojiang, Jingdong-Jinggu-Zhenyuan.

The "Coffee Capital" was thus built

Due to factors such as development history and planting technology, the coffee industry level in Puer City is relatively low
.
In recent years, Pu'er has made efforts in the whole industrial chain of coffee planting, research and development, processing, sales, warehousing, etc.
, and specially set up coffee industry management departments at the municipal and county levels to promote the fragrance of Pu'er coffee at home and abroad
.

"Borrowing a ship to go to sea" to expand the industry and enhance its popularity
.
As early as 1992, Nestlé established a coffee agronomic service department in Puer, and in 2014, it was upgraded to a coffee center integrating planting training and storage facilities, and in recent years, world-renowned buyers such as Starbucks and Ikam have also settled in Yunnan
.
Liu Haifeng, head of Yunnan International Coffee Trading Center, believes that multinational enterprises not only bring technical concepts and standard systems, but also bring Pu'er coffee raw materials into the international coffee supply system
.

Leading the development of
the industry with international standards.
As of the beginning of this year, more than 300,000 mu of coffee has been certified by Nestle, more than 100,000 mu of coffee has been certified by Starbucks, 28,000 mu of coffee has been certified organic, and more than 20,000 mu of coffee has been certified
by the Rainforest Alliance.
At the same time, through the establishment of the National Key Laboratory of Coffee Testing and the College of Tropical Crops of Yunnan Agricultural University, Puer has become a place where coffee scientific research, teaching and service guarantee institutions are concentrated in
the country.

Build an international trading platform to stimulate industrial vitality
.
In recent years, the Yunnan International Coffee Trading Center in Puer has continued to grow in promoting industrial integration and development, and by April this year, it had completed a cumulative trading volume of 110,000 tons of commercial coffee beans, with a transaction value of 1.
86 billion yuan, and realized the pledge and storage of 60,000 tons
of green coffee beans.
"We also released the Xinhua Yunnan (Puer) Coffee Price Index to continuously enhance the discourse power and influence
of Pu'er coffee prices.
" Liu Haifeng said
.

Cultivate brands and expand the market
with events.
In recent years, Pu'er City has actively organized coffee enterprises and coffee farmers to participate in events such as the World Siphon Pots Competition and various exhibitions such as the Shanghai Import Expo
.
Since 2013, Puer City has held an annual Yunnan Green Coffee Bean Competition, and the participation rate of coffee specialties has reached 87.
5%, allowing more and more people to witness "Pu'er has coffee, Pu'er produces specialty coffee"
.

Innovate agricultural policy-based insurance to improve the ability of
farmers and enterprises to resist market risks.
At present, Puer City has taken the lead in launching the target price insurance of green coffee beans in the country, established a platform insurance model of "government + platform + insurance institution", completed 10,000 tons of insurance, insured 3,910 farmers, and benefited more than 20,000 coffee farmers and growers, covering coffee producing areas
such as Puer, Xishuangbanna and Lincang.

Industrial development still needs to continue to exert efforts

Although the prospects are good, the development potential of the Pu'er coffee industry has not yet been fully tapped, and it is still in the mode of primary agricultural product trading, facing the difficulties
of large resources and small industries, large markets and small production.
Statistics show that the intensive processing rate of the coffee industry in Puer City in 2021 is still low, most enterprises are mainly based on primary processing, and the actual production capacity is far from
the expected production capacity.
In general, Yunnan coffee, including Puer, is still in the state of raw material supply, with insufficient intensive processing and large fluctuations in the market price of raw materials; In addition, affected by planting efficiency, the scale and output of coffee planting have declined in recent years, and the unit price has fluctuated greatly
.

Looking forward to the future, the opening of the China-Laos Railway and the vigorous development of domestic coffee consumption have created opportunities
for Pu'er coffee to go out of Yunnan and to the world.
Relevant people believe that Puer still needs to continue to make efforts and key breakthroughs
in improving the development quality of the coffee industry and promoting the integrated development of the "coffee +" industry.

Relevant people suggest that in recent years, the regional public brand of "Pu'er Coffee" has continued to be strengthened
.
In 2020, Pu'er Coffee was selected into the first batch of protection lists of the European Geographical Indications Agreement, and in 2021, the State Intellectual Property Office officially approved "Pu'er Coffee" to implement the protection of national geographical indication products, laying a solid foundation
for the brand development of Pu'er Coffee.
"The most important part of Pu'er coffee brand building is to polish the regional public brand
of Pu'er coffee.
" Zhang Xiong said
.

Strengthen scientific and technological support
.
Pu'er will strengthen the breeding and promotion of coffee varieties, accelerate the upgrading and transformation of coffee gardens, carry out the formulation of coffee industry chain standard system, and build a number of green ecological coffee gardens
with high standards.
At the same time, with the National Market Regulation Technology Innovation Center (coffee quality foundation and industrial services) as the core platform, research on coffee seed breeding and quality inspection is carried out
.

Advance intensive processing
.
In the market, the price of deeply processed coffee products is three or four times
the price of green beans.
In order to promote the fine-tuning of Pu'er coffee, further introduce coffee enterprises with strong strength, mature sales channels and certain brand influence, encourage enterprises to build intensive processing production lines, and establish a highly mechanized fresh fruit primary processing center with international standards and green environmental protection to achieve the stability and standardization
of product quality.

Strengthen the construction of
coffee industry service platform.
Liu Haifeng believes that whether it is the development needs of the industry or the platform function of the trading center, it is necessary to form an industrial group company led by state-owned capital, so as to better integrate, use and transform the high-quality resources of the industry, and jointly lead the high-quality development
of the coffee industry in Puer and even Yunnan.

China Food News (October 24, 2022, Edition 07)

(Editor: Luo Chen)