Pu'er City becomes golden growing belt for Arabica coffee

Pu'er, a city situated in Yunnan Province, southwest China, has developed itself into a global golden growing belt for Arabica coffee, reputed broadly as the "heaven of Arabica".

With the first coffee seed introduced into the locality more than a century ago, the city started large-scale coffee plantation as early as in 1988.

Boasting an extraordinarily high 74.59 percent of forest coverage and abundant natural resources, the city almost lies completely within the world golden plantation belt for coffee and is the capital of coffee in China.

In 2020, coffee plantation areas in Pu'er City reached 51,733.33 hectares, accounting for 48.8 percent of the national total and coffee bean output reached 58,600 tonnes, taking up more than 80 percent of the comparable aggregate in China.

Impressed by the rapid development of coffee industry in Pu'er City, Ted Lingle, former executive director of Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), said that Pu'er coffee is one of the best coffees in the world, strong and fragrant but not bitter, rich in fat and strong in acidity.

Lingle, who has been invited to be the senior consultant of Yunnan International Coffee Exchange since 2015, is fond of Pu'er coffee. In every coffee harvest season, Lingle always tells global coffee merchants that coffee has found a "new home" in China.

Recent years, Pu'er coffee has gained more and more acknowledgement from coffee industry at home and abroad. The city was nodded to be the location for key national coffee laboratory and Yunnan small-grain coffee seed breeding base together with many other coffee research and educational institutions.

By far, more than 20,000 hectares of coffee plantation areas in Pu'er City have been certified as 4C compliant coffee. Over 6,666.67 hectares of growing areas got C.A.F.E. Practices verification. More than 1,333.33 hectares of planting areas obtained Rainforest Alliance and UTZ certifications.

In September 2020, Pu'er coffee was formally included in the first batch of products on the protection list of China-EU geographical indications agreement.

In Pu'er City, global coffee merchants can always find specialty coffees in accordance with international specialty coffee standards, said Ted Lingle, hoping that more people can learn about and try coffee produced in Yunnan Province.