Banka Natural Coffee, Yunnan, China  

Farrer’s not only have a long coffee heritage, but their small, dedicated team have the drive and vision to bring you the very best ethically sourced coffees from around the globe.

Farrer’s is introducing a new and intoxicating coffee from Yunnan Province of China.

Chinese coffee started appearing in the international coffee market fairly recently and is gaining interest from all over the world. That is why we are really excited to announce another outstanding Chinese coffee here at Farrer’s. So outstanding it has recently won us a Great Taste Award!  It's a delicious one and one we highly recommend you try…

China’s Yunnan Province is Banka farm and washing station is based in Menglian Dai, Lahu and Va Autonomous County, Yunnan and is named after the two nearby villages, Banka Yi and Banka Er, where coffee is grown and harvested.

(Image by @paviro on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/c61jL_NpAn8)

Coffee is a recently introduced crop for China, first grown by French missionaries some 200 years ago, who cultivated the crop on a small scale in the Yunnan valley, located on the Chinese border with Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos.

Larger scale cultivation didn’t begin until around 140 years later, when in 1988 various United Nations and Chinese government incentivised schemes kicked in, which saw production rapidly grow to around 4,000 hectares. Today more than 23,000 hectares of coffee is being grown in China, with over 90% of the coffee harvest, currently around 30,000 tonnes being cultivated in Yunnan, where the geography and climatic conditions are similar to Colombia and Indonesia.

In the past much of China's coffee harvest was made up of Bourbon and Typica varietals planted in the 1950’s. These days approximately 70% of all of China's coffee comes from a newer coffee plant hybrid called Catimor, which is highly disease resistant.

Catimor is controversial in specialist coffee circles because it was entirely created in a lab, in Portugal in 1959 by scientists searching for the magic formula for high yielding coffee plants with high disease resistance and small plant size.

(Image by @herickson7 on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/2Q9zeNBoxA8

On one side of its family tree lies Caturra, the highly rated Bourbon natural mutation from Brazil, on the other side is the Timor Hybrid, a genetic misnomer, the result of a natural mating of a Robusta plant with an Arabica plant. This hint of Robusta has led to many snubbing the varietal, but they are really missing out!

Banka Natural delivers milk chocolate sweetness, a full rounded body with hints of soft red fruits, including strawberry and subtle floral notes, including jasmine.   

Farm: Yunnan Coffee Traders, Banka Washing Station,

Country: China  

Region: Yunnan

Varietal: Catimor

Process: Natural

Profile: Dark cherries, caramel, milk chocolate.  

Cup Score: 85