Coffee bean picking season enters full swing in SW China

Coffee growers in southwest China's Yunnan Province are reaping the rewards of their hard work amid surging coffee bean sales, with this year's crop looking promising as harvesting season enters full swing in China's largest coffee-producing region.

Accounting for over 98 percent of China's total coffee yield, Yunnan boasts the country's biggest overall coffee planting area and is gaining a reputation for producing high-quality beans as the Chinese thirst for coffee grows.

Pu'er City is often more closely associated with China's famous tea culture. It has also cultivated a booming coffee industry. Around half of Yunnan's coffee production is based in Pu'er, and the city's tea planting area has also expanded to well over 45,000 hectares this year, according to data.

Growers in Menglian Dai, Lahu and Va Autonomous County in Pu'er have been busy collecting the bright red fruits for coffee since late November. According to a local farmer, his 1.3 hectares of coffee trees have all produced fruits, and he expects a bumper harvest this year.

"This year, we started picking coffee beans in late November and have collected more than five tonnes so far, with an income of more than 20,000 yuan (about $2,800). This year's beans are better in quality, so the yield is expected to be about five or six tonnes, higher than last year. The income will also be higher," said Zhahai, a local coffee grower.

The local farmers sell their coffee beans to a processing factory at the end of each day and often enjoy significant profits during the peak harvest season.

"Today, I went to collect coffee beans, which weighed a tonne. The price for one kilogram is 4.6 yuan (about $0.6), so today I sold 4,600 yuan (over $640) of coffee beans," said a local grower.

Yunnan's coffee has now fully entered the prime picking season, which began last month and is set to last until March. In terms of the selling price, this year's fresh coffee beans continue along the steadily rising trend seen over the past three years.

"As this round of production season starts, the price is also stable between 4.6 to 4.7 yuan per kilogram," said Zhao Mei, the person in charge of a processing plant.

This year, the output of the coffee industry in Pu'er is expected to hit as much as 60,000 tonnes, according to a local official.

"We predict that this season, from 2023 to 2024, the production of fresh coffee beans will be more than 50,000 tonnes, possibly reaching about 60,000 tonnes, and the comprehensive output value may reach 7.5 billion yuan (about $1 billion)," said Zhang Xiong, deputy director of the Pu'er Tea and Coffee Industry Development Center.

(Cover image via CFP.)