A coffee farmer in Pu'er, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, holds coffee beans in his hands Photo: Zhang Hongpei/GT

Browsing on his smartphone for US coffee futures prices every day since a decade ago, Wang Chunsun, a coffee farmer living in the outskirts of Pu'er, a city famous for its synonymous tea in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, is optimistic about the prices he can sell his coffee beans for during this harvest season.

Having learned coffee planting since childhood from the father's side of the family, Wang can detect immediately whether a coffee bean is qualified in moisture and color. He represents the second-generation of Pu'er coffee farmers who have actively participated in the industry for decades to promote the grains' development.

Wang's father told the Global Times that he started planting coffee trees in 1992 when his family earned little profit. Wang's father sought to make a living for his family by growing mango. "Now," the elderly Wang said, pointing to the two-story house beside him, "we have built the new house and bought another one near Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Xishuangbanna."

With a coffee plantation around 100 mu (6.67 hectares), Wang expects to harvest about 60 tons of red coffee fruit this year, the quantity of which can generate 12-13 tons of the green beans inside the fruit.

From planting, and plucking when the green fruit turns ripe red, peeling and removing its internal pectin, and washing it amid exposure to sunshine, coffee farmers need to attend to the grains during the whole process, hoping their green beans can be sold at a handsome price to buyers.

Not only tea

With sea level elevation around 1,200-1,500 meters and mild temperature throughout the year, Pu'er, a traditional tea cultivation area, has the natural condition for growing coffee beans. Tea trees and coffee trees stand together peacefully on the mountain. 

Located in the global golden growth zone of Arabica coffee beans, Pu'er has 52,600 hectares of coffee plantation areas.

A satisfying cultivation environment in Pu'er as well as surging market demand for coffee drinks in the nation have prompted transnational companies such as Swiss food and drinks giant Nestlé and US coffee behemoth Starbucks to accelerate steps to place their coffee chain close to China's largest production base.

"The region can account for half the total coffee production in Yunnan, registering about 50,000 tons annually," said Wang Hai, head of the Nestlé Coffee Center (NCC). "Nestlé has been the largest buyer in Pu'er as one quarter of the coffee grains is purchased by the company."

Established in 2016, the NCC exports 90 percent of its coffee purchase in Pu'er to its factories in Europe and the Oceania with the remaining staying in China.

The NCC signed a memorandum of understanding with Yunnan Agricultural University in December to improve the yield of coffee and the quality of coffee beans.

The Swiss company has 1,365 coffee bean suppliers in Pu'er so far, including small individual farmers and estate-grown coffee firms. The company's supply from individual farmers takes up 27 percent of its total purchase.

Nestlé entered Yunnan for the first time in 1988 as an initiator to promote the local coffee planting sector by sharing knowledge with farmers covering field management and processing technology. It wasn't until Nestlé first introduced the Catimor coffee bean to Pu'er at that time that China's coffee business really started booming.

Starbucks built the company's first coffee bean plantation support center in Asia in Pu'er in 2012. In 2018, the US coffee giant opened its first outlet in Pu'er.

"We sell all our beans to Nestlé. The company has a strict purchase system to guarantee beans' quality for consumers. I was prized in 2018 by 0.1 yuan per kilogram thanks to the high quality," said the younger farmer Wang.

According to the price tag shown on the screen outside the NCC, coffee beans can be sold at around 17 yuan ($2.47) to 18 yuan per kilogram. Several years ago, the price once reached to 40 yuan per kilogram. 

"Despite relatively low prices in the two harvest periods from 2017/18 to 2018/19, local farmers have now basically realized good life materially," the NCC head told the Global Times.

Annual revenues for major plantation companies who operate more than 500 hectares can reach tens of millions of yuan. 

Taking off

Accounting for more than 95 percent of China's coffee production, Yunnan has ramped up efforts reinforcing its coffee industry's competitiveness and sustainable development.

As a major raw material provider for most of the world's big coffee brands, Yunnan coffee is still struggling for its own recognition as domestic consumers have turned their eyes to coffee imported from Brazil or Colombia for the exotic flavor.

As one of the coffee producing countries in the world, China's coffee trading sector has shown an obvious deficit.

Data from China's Ministry of Commerce showed that China's imports of coffee, tea and other spices from Brazil surged by 266.4 percent in 2018 compared with the previous year, while the year-on-year increase was 83.1 percent for Colombia.

Coffee has become a daily necessity for China's fast-paced cosmopolitans where white-collar workers treat the drink as part of their lifestyle, and instant coffee has taken a lion share in the Chinese mainland market, industry analysts told the Global Times.

Strengthening the branding of Yunnan coffee as well as exploring the specially selected coffee segment can help drive further growth of domestic coffee industry, they explained.

Coffee consumption in China has increased by 15 to 20 percent on a yearly basis since 2011, according to a report by Zhiyan Consulting Group. 

The domestic coffee market value is forecast to reach 300 billion yuan this year and hit a trillion yuan by 2025, said Hu Lu, secretary-general of Yunnan Coffee Association.

Hu told the Global Times on Tuesday that the grain is set to embrace its second booming period in 2020 as the nation aims to eliminate poverty completely by the end of the year.

The first time coffee made a stride in China was the 2008-2009 period, Hu noted.

The huge growth potential can be also reflected by current coffee cup consumption. According to statistics from market research company Euromonitor, the Chinese mainland had an average of 4.7 cups of coffee consumption per person in 2018 compared with 207 cups in Japan and 261 cups in the US.