Southwest China's Yunnan Province has been continuously improving its coffee industry in recent years by focusing on quality control, winning recognition from the global market.
On the production line of a coffee company in Baoshan City, an X-ray machine for selecting ripe coffee beans completes fine screening work at a speed of 12,000 coffee beans per second. Yang Zhu, a manager at the company, said that the improvement in the level of automation ensures that only high-quality coffee is delivered to consumers.
"This is the first X-ray device in China for coffee bean screening. We developed it together with a leading optical enterprise in China. We also developed nitrogen cooling fresh-locking packaging to preserve the freshness of coffee beans. It solves the problem of how to keep our premium coffee beans fresh," Yang said.
Coffee beans from the mountains come to the deep processing factory after simple primary processing by farmers. By using advanced means to process the coffee further, the factory adds significant value to the beans, which will be sold to the expanding coffee-drinking consumer market in the country.
"In recent years, domestic coffee brands have become more and more popular in the market. Our sales in 2019 were only more than 10 million yuan (about 1.3 million U.S. dollars), and by 2020 our sales reached more than 60 million yuan. Last year, our sales reached 268 million yuan. It maintains a good growth every year," Yang said.
In the past, most of the coffee grown in Yunnan was imported, which to some extent restricted the development of the industry. In recent years, agricultural researchers have independently selected and bred five new varieties with completely independent intellectual property rights.
Today, the quality-focused coffee of Yunnan has received positive feedback from the global market. According to data from Kunming Customs, Yunnan coffee exports reached 32,500 tons in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 358 percent. The coffee was mainly sold to 29 countries and regions including Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.
"This is not the largest export volume in history. At the peak, the annual coffee exports of Yunnan reached more than 50,000 tons. At present, we are focusing on high-quality products. Some of them were even made by agricultural orders, as domestic merchants made orders while the coffee beans were still on the trees," said Li Xiaobo, chairman of the Yunnan Coffee Industry Association.
Yunnan coffee industry accelerates improvements in bean processing
