This page is the readable version of Yunma’s atlas: the genealogy of the coffee tree, from the Coffea arabica born of a natural cross in Ethiopia to the varieties planted in Yunnan today. It lists 65 varieties, species and populations, the timeline of coffee in Yunnan and its seven growing regions. The interactive atlas is explored in three dimensions; this text carries all of its content.
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Date : 350,000 to 610,000 years ago · Place : Forests of Ethiopia · Parents : Coffea canephora, Coffea eugenioides
Born from a natural hybridization between C. canephora and C. eugenioides, it inherited two sets of chromosomes from each parent (allotetraploid). The genomic study published in Nature Genetics in 2024 dates the event to between 350,000 and 610,000 years ago, before Homo sapiens appeared. Several bottlenecks then narrowed its genetic diversity, which is why it is so vulnerable to disease.
Date : ≈ 15th century · Place : Yemen · Parents : Ethiopian populations
The first major growing area outside Ethiopia. Genomes published in 2024 trace Bourbon, Typica and the Indian cultivars back to a common origin in Yemen. This genetic bottleneck explains why most cultivated varieties are so alike.
Date : ≈ 30,500 years ago · Place : South-western Ethiopia · Parents : Coffea arabica
Around 30,500 years ago, wild populations split from the ancestors of cultivated varieties (Salojärvi et al., 2024). Ethiopia’s forests remain Arabica’s great reservoir of diversity: Gesha, Java (the Abyssinia population) and Rume Sudan were all collected there.
Date : 19th century or 1928 (sources disagree) · Place : Ethiopia → Java → Cameroon → Costa Rica (1991) · Parents : Ethiopian populations
Long thought to be a Typica, it actually comes from an Ethiopian landrace population called Abyssinia (genetic fingerprinting). Selected in Cameroon for its partial tolerance to coffee berry disease, introduced to Costa Rica in 1991. A floral profile close to Gesha.
Date : collected in the 1930s · Place : Gesha (Ethiopia) → Kenya, Tanzania → CATIE, Costa Rica (1953) → Panama · Parents : Ethiopian populations
An Ethiopian landrace collected in the 1930s, kept at CATIE (Costa Rica) and later planted in Panama. Revealed in 2004 by Hacienda La Esmeralda: jasmine and bergamot notes, record prices.
In Yunnan — The flagship variety of Yunnan’s new wave. At Gems of Yunnan 2026, 13 of the top 15 lots are Geisha (including “Huixun Geisha” and “Geisha 1931”), and first place went to a washed Geisha from Lincang (91.78 pts).
Date : ≈ 1940s (approximate position) · Place : Boma Plateau (South Sudan) · Parents : Ethiopian populations
A semi-wild landrace close to the Ethiopian populations, valuable for its genetic diversity. Parent of the F1 hybrid Centroamericano (H1).
Date : the “74” series, released from the 1970s · Place : Jimma Agricultural Research Center (Ethiopia) · Parents : Ethiopian populations
Behind the word “heirloom” on Ethiopian lots there are also named, released varieties. The numbers in the 74 series come out of the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC), which selected trees resistant to coffee berry disease in Ethiopia’s forests. With 74158, they are the three most common varieties in Sidama: small to medium bean, a cup balanced in acidity and body. Papers published by JARC still use 74110 as the reference variety when comparing processing methods.
Date : Ecuador, ≈ 1990s – 2000s (disputed story) · Place : Pichincha (Ecuador) → Colombia · Parents : Ethiopian populations
The usual story makes it a Typica × Bourbon cross bred at a Nestlé research station in Ecuador. Genetic tests published by roasters point instead to an Ethiopian landrace, and World Coffee Research suggests the name may cover several different varieties. A competition favourite.
Date : spotted at the 2012 Cup of Excellence Colombia · Place : Urrao, Antioquia (Colombia) · Parents : Ethiopian populations
Grown mostly in Urrao, in south-west Antioquia. It was first taken for a mutation of Caturra with elongated beans, hence its first name, “Caturra Chiroso” — chiroso means “slightly stretched” in rural Colombian slang. Genetic tests place it instead with the Ethiopian landraces, outside the Bourbon-Typica group; that work has not yet been scientifically verified, and nobody knows how the variety travelled from Ethiopia to Colombia. Two types of tree coexist in Urrao, one with deep red cherries, the other with more yellow fruit and differently shaped leaves. The same trajectory as Sidra or Pink Bourbon: spotted at a competition, then planted for the cup.
Date : Huila (Colombia), ≈ 2010s · Place : Huila (Colombia) · Parents : Ethiopian populations
Pink cherries, first taken for a spontaneous cross of red and yellow Bourbon. Two genetic analyses (2017, then 2023 by RD2 Vision) concluded it is an Ethiopian landrace with no link to Bourbon. The name stuck.
Date : ≈ 1600 (tradition) · Place : Baba Budan hills, India · Parents : Yemeni Arabica
According to tradition, the monk Baba Budan smuggled seven seeds out of Yemen around 1600. This is the starting point of Indian Arabica, and later of the Typica line spread by the Dutch.
Date : 1696 – 1720 · Place : India → Java → Amsterdam → Paris → Caribbean · Parents : Indian cultivars
The Dutch took plants from India to Java at the end of the 17th century, then to the Amsterdam botanical garden. A plant given to Louis XIV in 1714 is the origin of the coffee trees of the Caribbean and Latin America. A tall tree with low yields and very susceptible to leaf rust, but a fine, clean cup.
In Yunnan — One of Yunnan’s two historic varieties: planted in Ruili from 1914, brought from Burma, then in Baoshan in the 1950s. In Baoshan, the “old varieties” means Typica and Bourbon.
Date : introduced to Jamaica in 1728 · Place : Blue Mountains (Jamaica) · Parents : Typica
Coffee reached Jamaica in 1728, and the Typica line that settled there became Blue Mountain — described as a mutation of Typica with some resistance to coffee berry disease. The name is first of all an appellation: only certified coffee from the parishes of Saint Andrew, Saint Thomas, Portland and Saint Mary may carry it, in mountains rising to 2,256 m under a cool, misty climate. Over 80% of the crop goes to Japan. The same line is grown in Kenya, Hawaii, Haiti, Papua New Guinea (as PNG Gold) and Cameroon (Boyo).
Date : 1870 · Place : Maragogipe, Bahia (Brazil) · Parents : Typica
A natural mutation of Typica with giant beans and low yields. Parent of Pacamara.
Date : ≈ 1920s · Place : Southern India · Parents : Indian cultivars
An Indian selection related to Typica, long valued for its tolerance to leaf rust. Parent of S795.
Date : 1930s · Place : Kenya (Loresho, Kabete) · Parents : Typica
Another Scott Laboratories selection, adapted to wet high-altitude areas. Genetically linked to the Typica group.
In Yunnan — Listed by Sucafina among the Arabicas commonly grown in China.
Date : 1949 · Place : Finca Brito, Santa Cruz Naranjo, Santa Rosa (Guatemala) · Parents : Typica
A natural mutation of Typica caused by a single dwarfing gene: the tree stays compact, can be planted more densely and yields more. Found in 1949 on the Brito farm at Santa Cruz Naranjo, then fixed by mass selection — a group of good performers is kept, their seed bulked, and the process repeated. First crop in year four. Crossed with Caturra, it gave Pache Colis, with larger fruit and rougher foliage.
Date : ≈ 1708 – 1718 · Place : Bourbon Island (Réunion) · Parents : Yemeni Arabica
Seeds brought from Yemen by the French to Bourbon Island in the early 18th century, then spread to East Africa and Brazil in the 19th. More productive than Typica, with a round, sweet cup; susceptible to leaf rust.
In Yunnan — With Typica, the other original variety of Yunnan (Ruili 1914, Baoshan in the 1950s). Sources disagree on which variety was planted at Zhukula.
Date : ≈ 1810 · Place : Bourbon Island (Réunion) · Parents : Bourbon
Around 1810, growers on Réunion noticed smaller Bourbon trees with pointed cherries and seeds — hence the nickname “Bourbon pointu”. It was long thought to be a cross with the island’s indigenous coffee; research into its origin concludes it is simply a natural mutation of Bourbon, genetically almost identical. Its name comes from its resemblance to the laurel. It carries about half the caffeine of an ordinary Arabica — which also leaves it more exposed to insects, caffeine being a natural repellent. Christmas-tree shape, about two metres tall, small leaves, fragile cherries. Nearly extinct by the end of the 19th century, it has since returned, and carried the winning 2018 World Brewers Cup routine.
Date : ≈ 1897 · Place : East Africa (French missions) · Parents : Bourbon
The name given to the Bourbon planted in East Africa by French missionaries around 1897. It is not a distinct variety, then, but a Bourbon population acclimatised to Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. The Kenyan selections come out of it: K7 was drawn directly from it, and SL34 was selected within French Mission — even if World Coffee Research places its genetic signature on the Typica side of the group. The name still circulates on African markets, and it lies behind Arusha in Tanzania and Papua New Guinea.
Date : ≈ 1915 – 1918 · Place : Minas Gerais (Brazil) · Parents : Bourbon
A dwarf mutation of Bourbon: compact plant, dense planting, high yield. It became the basis of intensive coffee farming in Central America, and the parent of the Catimors and Catuaí.
In Yunnan — Listed among the varieties found in Yunnan (Sucafina). Above all, it is the mother of the Catimor that now covers the province.
Date : 1930 · Place : Pederneiras, São Paulo (Brazil) · Parents : Bourbon
Spotted in 1930 at Pederneiras, São Paulo. Two hypotheses coexist and the question is still debated: a natural cross between the yellow and red Bourbons of Botucatu, or simply a mutation of red Bourbon. Its cherries ripen golden yellow instead of red. It was one of the first varieties recognised for its cup — sweet, delicate-bodied, complex — with a yield well above the older varieties: Brazilian production tripled between 1949 and 1951, before falling back in the face of more productive, more resistant varieties. IAC resumed work on it in 2005. At the 2017 Cup of Excellence Brazil, one lot scored 92.33 and sold for US$126/lb, a hundred times the C price that day.
In Yunnan — Planted in Yunnan alongside Catimor, with Typica and Pacamara, on the plots that chase the cup rather than the yield. It is the variety behind Yunma’s Yellow Bourbon, which comes from Gaosheng Manor in the Lujiang valley (Baoshan).
Date : 1931 · Place : Scott Agricultural Laboratories, Kenya · Parents : Bourbon
Selected from the “Tanganyika Drought Resistant” tree, genetically related to Bourbon. Bright acidity (blackcurrant, citrus), the signature of Kenyan coffees. Susceptible to leaf rust.
Date : 1936 · Place : Legelet Estate, Muhoroni (Kenya) · Parents : French Mission
A Kenyan selection drawn from French Mission by the farmer R. H. Walker, then refined over five generations by the Scott Agricultural Laboratories and released in 1936. It was chosen on cupping trials alone. Tall tree, medium yield, good potential at altitude, first crop in year three. It now serves as a yield benchmark in the World Coffee Research catalog, alongside Caturra and Bourbon, and it has been widely used in Kenyan and Tanzanian breeding: it appears in the parentage of both Ruiru 11 and Batian.
Date : 1940s · Place : São Paulo (Brazil) · Parents : Typica, Bourbon
A natural cross between a Typica (“Sumatra”) and a Red Bourbon. Vigorous and productive, a pillar of Brazil and the parent of Catuaí.
Date : 1949 · Place : El Salvador · Parents : Bourbon
A dwarf mutation of Bourbon found on the Pacas family farm.
Date : ≈ 1950s · Place : Sarchí (Costa Rica) · Parents : Bourbon
A dwarf mutation of Bourbon, adapted to altitude and wind. Parent of the Sarchimor family.
Date : 1958 (cross) · Place : ISIC, El Salvador · Parents : Pacas, Maragogipe
A Pacas × Maragogipe cross created by El Salvador’s coffee research institute: large beans, a very expressive cup, a regular at competitions. World Coffee Research calls it capable of exceptional cup quality, and warns in the same breath that it is not homogeneous: plants are not stable from one generation to the next.
In Yunnan — Present in Yunnan, but at the margin: on trial plots and at a few older specialty farms, not in the production orchard. In 2020 Yunnan Coffee Traders — the province’s first dedicated specialty exporter — said it was growing Pacamara on its research plots, alongside Bourbon, where Typica had struggled. It appears in none of the top fifteen lots at Gems of Yunnan 2026, where Geisha fills that role. When it reached the province is not documented in open sources. It is the variety of the lot Yunma brings back from Yun Lan Estate, in Xishuangbanna, between 1,600 and 1,800 m — a farm founded in 1999, among the oldest specialty farms in Yunnan, growing more than twenty varieties.
Date : crossed in 1949 · released in 1972 · Place : IAC, Campinas (Brazil) · Parents : Mundo Novo, Caturra
Mundo Novo × Yellow Caturra. Compact, productive and wind-resistant: one of the most widely planted varieties in Latin America.
Date : 1927 · Place : Island of Timor · Parents : Typica, Coffea canephora
A tree discovered in 1927 in a Typica plantation: a spontaneous Arabica × Robusta cross, almost immune to leaf rust. The CIFC (Portugal) received seeds in 1958-59. It is the genetic bridge between the two species, and the source of the resistance genes in most modern varieties.
Date : 1930s (≈) · Place : India (CCRI) · Parents : Indian cultivars, Coffea liberica
An Indian selection from a natural Arabica × Liberica hybrid. It carries a leaf-rust resistance gene inherited from C. liberica.
In Yunnan — Introduced to Yunnan from India (1963 according to one source), then spread in the 1980s as a resistant variety, before being replaced by the far more productive Catimor.
Date : 1940s · Place : India (CCRI) → Indonesia (1955) · Parents : Kent, S288
A Kent × S288 cross from India’s Central Coffee Research Institute. Known as “Jember” in Indonesia, where it arrived in 1955.
Date : 1959 · Place : CIFC, Oeiras (Portugal) · Parents : Caturra, Timor Hybrid
Red Caturra (CIFC 19/1) × Timor Hybrid (CIFC 832/1). Not a single variety but a family of locally selected lines (T8667, Costa Rica 95, Lempira, Catisic, Oro Azteca…). Compact, highly productive, rust-resistant. Its cup has a reputation for being average at low altitude.
In Yunnan — More than 95% of Yunnan’s production. Introduced through a public programme in the 1980s and rolled out with Nestlé from 1988. In 2011 the CIFC 7963 line covered ≈ 90% of 43,000 ha. It can also shine: at Gems of Yunnan 2026, a natural Catimor from Baoshan (Tiantian Manor) placed 12th with 88.53 pts.
Date : from the 1960s (≈) · Place : CIFC → Latin America · Parents : Villa Sarchi, Timor Hybrid
Villa Sarchi × Timor Hybrid: the “sister” family of Catimor, which gave T5296, Marsellesa, Obatã and Parainema.
Date : 1970s (≈) · Place : CIFC (Portugal) → CATIE (Costa Rica) · Parents : Sarchimor
Timor Hybrid 832/2 × Villa Sarchi: the mother line of the whole Sarchimor family. Dwarf, large bean, medium yield, good cup potential at altitude, intermediate rust resistance, first crop in year three. Its flaw is well known: the line is not uniform, plants are not stable from one generation to the next — which is why World Coffee Research does not recommend it for planting while calling it essential for breeding. It requires high fertilisation, and it is the parent of the F1 hybrids Centroamericano and Mundo Maya.
Date : F5 progeny received at CATIE in 1978 · Place : CIFC (Portugal) → CATIE (Costa Rica) · Parents : Catimor
Timor Hybrid 832/1 × Caturra, then pedigree selection: this is the most important Catimor line in the history of Central American breeding. It begins with PROMECAFE, the regional consortium founded in 1978 by USAID and IAC Campinas to answer the arrival of leaf rust; that same year CATIE received the F5 progeny from CIFC. Dwarf, bronze leaf tips, high yield, intermediate rust resistance, first crop in year three, well adapted to the warmest zones and to acidic soils. Its cup potential at altitude is rated low: that is the limit of the whole family.
Date : 1982 · Place : Cenicafé (Colombia) · Parents : Catimor
The first variety out of the programme Cenicafé launched in 1968 to obtain rust-resistant trees, starting from Caturra and the Timor Hybrid. Released in 1982, one year before leaf rust reached Colombia for the first time. Cenicafé then went looking for better — more yield, more resistance, bigger beans, a cup closer to Caturra’s, and longevity: after twenty-three years of work, that became Castillo.
Date : released in Yunnan from the 1980s · Place : CIFC (Portugal) → Yunnan · Parents : Catimor
One Catimor line among dozens, and yet one of the most planted in Asia. The number is its accession number in the CIFC collection in Portugal, where every line in the family comes from.
In Yunnan — In practice, this is the variety of Yunnan. In 2011 it covered on its own about 90% of the province’s 43,000 ha. The Dehong institute that released it states that the varieties it selected or introduced — CIFC 7963 included — cover more than 80% of the planted area: that is its own communication, not an independent figure. Behind almost all the “Yunnan small bean” sold around the world there is therefore this single line — and the monoculture that goes with it, which the province’s institutes are now trying to loosen.
Date : 1990s (release date not found) · Place : ICAFE (Costa Rica) · Parents : Catimor
The same cross as T8667 — Timor Hybrid 832/1 × Caturra — selected generation after generation by the Coffee Institute of Costa Rica. Dwarf, high yield, cup potential at altitude rated low. It shows a habit of the trade: one cross, taken up by two institutes, yields two varieties under two names.
Date : 1990s (release date not found) · Place : IAPAR, Paraná (Brazil) · Parents : Sarchimor
The same cross as T5296 — Timor Hybrid 832/2 × Villa Sarchi — selected this time by the Agronomic Institute of Paraná. Dwarf, light bronze tips, medium yield, resistant to leaf rust and to some nematodes, first crop in year three; cup potential at altitude rated low. Like Obatã and Marsellesa, it serves as a parent for the World Coffee Research F1 hybrids.
Date : released in Brazil in 2000 · Place : IAC, Campinas (Brazil) · Parents : Sarchimor
Timor Hybrid 832/2 × Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/10, selected generation after generation by the Instituto Agronômico de Campinas, in São Paulo state. Released in Brazil in 2000, then brought to Costa Rica by ICAFE for commercial release in 2014. Dwarf, high yield, good cup potential at altitude. It is one of the three Sarchimors World Coffee Research crossed with wild Arabicas to create its F1 hybrids.
Date : 2005 · Place : Cenicafé (Colombia) · Parents : Variedad Colombia
Derived from the Caturra × Timor Hybrid line (Variedad Colombia), developed by Cenicafé. It has largely replaced Typica and Bourbon in Colombia.
Date : 2000s (≈) · Place : ECOM / CIRAD (Nicaragua) · Parents : Sarchimor
A new-generation Sarchimor (HdT 832/2 × Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/10), resistant to leaf rust. Parent of Starmaya.
Date : 2010 · Place : Coffee Research Station, Ruiru (Kenya) · Parents : Ruiru 11, Timor Hybrid
Released in Kenya in 2010, obtained by single-tree selection in the F5 generations of the male parent of some Ruiru 11 progenies. A composite variety: three pure lines mixed, whose parentage brings together SL28, SL34, Rume Sudan, N39, K7, SL4 and the Timor Hybrid. Tall tree, high yield, first crop in year two, and above all very good cup potential at altitude — rare for a variety resistant to both leaf rust and coffee berry disease.
Date : ≈ 2016 · twenty years of work · Place : Cenicafé (Colombia) · Parents : Catimor
Caturra × Timor Hybrid 1343, narrowed down from 116 advanced progenies: twenty years of breeding to give Colombian growers a tree shaped like Caturra but resistant to leaf rust — and to coffee berry disease, which has not yet reached Colombia. Castillo-level yield, large bean, specialty-grade scores on the table according to the Colombian federation. It can be planted at up to 10,000 trees per hectare in full sun, 5,000 to 7,000 under shade.
Date : Dehong institute selection (date not found) · Place : Ruili, Dehong (Yunnan)
Selected by the Dehong Tropical Agricultural Research Institute (Ruili) from a single tree with golden-yellow cherries found in its collection. Its exact pedigree is not published in open sources. It is the flagship of the De-Re (德热) series: 16 varieties according to the institute, 8 of them nationally approved, including De-Re 3 and De-Re 4.
In Yunnan — One of the few varieties born in Yunnan. The institute keeps China’s largest coffee collection (more than 1,150 accessions). It says the varieties it bred or spread, Catimor CIFC 7963 included, cover more than 80% of the province’s area: that is the institute’s own claim, not an independent figure. In Dehong, farmers mainly grow Catimor, De-Re and Geisha.
Date : 1985 · Place : Ruiru research station (Kenya) · Parents : Catimor, K7
In 1968 a coffee berry disease epidemic cost Kenya half its crop. The Ruiru station launched an intensive breeding programme and in 1985 released a composite hybrid: a Catimor as female parent, crossed with a multicross drawn from K7, SL28, N39 and Rume Sudan. Dwarf, very high yield, first crop in year two, good cup potential at altitude — but a reputation for a cup behind K7, SL28 and SL34. It is the plant that let Kenya replant densely and lose less.
Date : 2010 · Place : CIRAD, PROMECAFE, CATIE (Central America) · Parents : Sarchimor, Rume Sudan
An F1 hybrid: Sarchimor T5296 × Rume Sudan. Thanks to hybrid vigour it yields 22 to 47% more than the control varieties. Rust-resistant and of specialty quality (2nd at Cup of Excellence Nicaragua). Propagated by cloning.
Date : ≈ 2010s · Place : CIRAD & ECOM (Nicaragua) · Parents : Sarchimor, Ethiopian populations
F1 hybrid of Sarchimor T5296 × Ethiopian accession ET01, from the programme run by CIRAD and its partners (CATIE, Icafé, ECOM) between 1990 and 2013. Along with Centroamericano, it out-yielded Latin America’s most planted varieties in published trials. Propagated by cloning.
Date : 2019 (seeds) · Place : ECOM & CIRAD (Nicaragua) · Parents : Marsellesa, Ethiopian populations
The first F1 Arabica hybrid that can be propagated by seed, thanks to a naturally male-sterile parent crossed with Marsellesa. Its plants cost half as much to produce as with in vitro propagation.
Date : crossed in 2016 · on-farm trials 2024 – 2030 · Place : World Coffee Research (Central America) · Parents : Marsellesa, Ethiopian populations
In 2016, World Coffee Research created 46 F1 hybrids by crossing 8 wild Arabicas from its collection with three Sarchimors (Obatã, Marsellesa, IAPAR 59) and Geisha. The first trial phase ended in 2022 with four finalists. Since 2024 they have been planted on partner farms, in real conditions. A release decision is expected around 2030. They have no commercial name yet.
Date : launched 2022 · first varieties targeted for 2030 · Place : World Coffee Research network, 9 countries · Parents : WCR F1 hybrids
The first global Arabica breeding programme in fifty years, launched in 2022 with nine countries: Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Rwanda, Uganda and the United States. The best parents from international trials are used for new crosses (about 1,000 plants sown in early 2023), sorted with genomics. The goal: around a hundred pure lines by 2030, plus new hybrids. A similar network has been announced for Robusta.
In Yunnan — China is not among the nine founding countries: Yunnan diversifies its varieties through its own institutes.
Date : parent species (far older) · Place : Central and West Africa
Cross-pollinating diploid species, far more genetically diverse than Arabica and resistant to leaf rust. Robusta is one of Arabica’s two parents; hundreds of thousands of years later it passed on its resistance genes again, through the Timor Hybrid. All of Yunnan’s Catimor carries that trace.
Date : 20th century (approximate position) · Place : Uganda · Parents : Coffea canephora
Upright habit. A morphological type of Ugandan Robusta, not a variety in the strict sense. Its clones give high yields.
Date : 20th century (approximate position) · Place : Uganda · Parents : Coffea canephora
Spreading habit: the other main Ugandan type. It combines better in breeding (higher general combining ability).
Date : 20th century (date not verified) · Place : Java (Indonesia) · Parents : Coffea canephora
An Indonesian Robusta clone listed by World Coffee Research.
Date : 20th century (date not verified) · Place : India (CCRI) · Parents : Coffea canephora
Indian Robusta selections from the Central Coffee Research Institute.
Date : 20th century (date not verified) · Place : India (CCRI) · Parents : Coffea canephora, Coffea congensis
An interspecific hybrid C. congensis × C. canephora: not a pure Robusta.
Date : 2000s – 2010s · Place : Uganda (NaCORI) · Parents : Coffea canephora
Varieties resistant to Coffee Wilt Disease. According to World Coffee Research, they can raise farmers’ income by up to 250%.
Date : parent species (far older) · Place : East Africa
Diploid species, low in caffeine. With Robusta, one of the two parents of Arabica.
Date : species · Place : West Africa
The third cultivated species. It passed a leaf-rust resistance gene to some Indian lines (S288).
Date : species · Place : Congo basin
A species close to Robusta, from the banks of the Congo. Parent of the Indian hybrid CxR.
Date : found again in 2018 · study published 2021 · Place : Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire
Grown in West Africa until the early 20th century and then abandoned, not recorded in Sierra Leone since 1954. Found again in the wild in 2018 by Aaron Davis’s team (Kew). It grows at a mean temperature of 24.9 °C, up to 6.8 °C higher than Arabica, and a tasting panel found its profile close to Arabica. Black fruit. A threatened species, not yet grown at scale.
Date : a species in its own right since 2025 · Place : Central Africa · grown in India, Uganda, South-East Asia · Parents : Coffea liberica
Long treated as a variety of Liberica, Excelsa was recognised as a distinct species by a Kew genomic study published in 2025. More productive than Liberica, it is of interest for its heat and drought tolerance; a few Indian estates already work it as specialty coffee.
Date : name proposed in 2026 · Place : Uganda, India, South-East Asia · Parents : Coffea liberica, Coffea dewevrei
Name proposed in 2026 by the Kew team for the Liberica × Excelsa hybrids that arise spontaneously where both species grow side by side. The idea: combine Excelsa’s productivity with Liberica’s climate tolerance. Still at the research stage.
Yunnan supplies 98% of China’s coffee. Its genetic history comes in three stages: Typica and Bourbon cross the Burmese border in 1914; from 1988, a programme run with the World Bank and the UNDP, then with Nestlé, converts almost the whole crop to Catimor — a single line, CIFC 7963, carrying Robusta genes through the Timor Hybrid; and since the 2010s a new wave has been replanting Geisha at altitude, while Yunnan becomes China’s leading coffee exporter. Specialty coffee still accounted for less than 2% of volumes in 2018.
A French missionary, Alfred Liétard (Tian Deneng), planted coffee trees around his church in Zhukula (Binchuan, Dali). Depending on the source, the date is 1892, 1902 or 1904. Around twenty century-old trees still stand there.
Outside Yunnan: Robusta was brought from Malaya to Hainan Island. Yunnan, for its part, would remain Arabica country.
Jingpo border officials introduced Typica and Bourbon from Burma to the village of Nongxianshan (Ruili, Dehong).
In the 1950s, the Lujiang valley (Baoshan) became the first structured growing area, with about 4,000 ha of Typica and Bourbon.
A first rust-resistant variety is introduced to Yunnan.
After a public programme in the 1980s (S288 and Catimor), Nestlé partnered with the Yunnan government to plant Catimor across the province. 1988 is the reference year: the Chinese government, the World Bank and the UNDP jointly launched the programme that established modern coffee farming in Yunnan. Today 98% of China’s coffee comes from here.
Hogood Coffee is founded in Dehong and becomes China’s largest instant-coffee maker. It takes advantage of relaxed land-use rules in Yunnan to consolidate plots under contract: it supplies the seedlings, farmers harvest, it buys the beans back. This is the model that made Yunnan a volume supplier before it was a terroir.
Specialty production starts around 2009 around a handful of early adopters, among them Hu Xixiang at Mangzhang Farms (Menglian, Pu’er), supported by professionals from abroad. In 2013, Yunnan Coffee Traders becomes the province’s first dedicated specialty exporter.
The CIFC 7963 line dominates. The province produced 53,240 t of coffee in 2011.
The Yunnan Farmer Support Center opens. In 2014, Starbucks bought more than half of the Chinese coffee imported into the United States over the first nine months of the year.
The Yunnan Coffee Exchange opens in January 2016. That same year about half the crop is exported, earning US$280 million — almost entirely commercial-grade green beans bound for Europe. In 2018, Chongqing becomes the country’s largest trading hub.
The Specialty Coffee Association picks China as the portrait country of its expo, the largest in the world. At the time, specialty coffee still accounts for less than 2% of Chinese volumes. Between 2006 and 2017, domestic consumption grew by an average of 22% a year.
Catimor exceeds 95% of production. The Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences has gathered more than 6,000 genetic resources from Ethiopia to diversify varieties.
The Ministry of Agriculture’s coffee germplasm nursery, run by the Dehong institute in Ruili, passed 800 accessions at the end of 2023; it now holds more than 1,150, China’s largest collection. The local De-Re (德热) series comes from here.
Yunnan’s output grew 13%. According to the Coffee Association of Yunnan, 31.6% of beans are graded premium and 80% are processed locally.
Buoyed by record world prices, Yunnan exported 860 million yuan of coffee, more than 40% of China’s coffee exports. Dehong adopted a 2025 – 2027 quality action plan.
144 coffees from seven regions competed.
169 coffees, 30 of them above 87 pts. Geisha dominates the ranking; a Catimor finished 12th (88.53).
Yunnan’s coffee grows between 21° and 26° north, on both sides of the Tropic of Cancer. At that latitude it would be too hot almost anywhere else; here altitude redraws the map — specialty lots rarely start below 1,300 m, and the cool nights of the mid-mountains ripen the cherry slowly. Seven regions produce, and they are not alike: Pu’er and Xishuangbanna in the south, Baoshan and Dehong in the west against the Burmese border, Lincang in the middle. The size of each circle shows how many of the region’s lots made the Gems of Yunnan 2026 top fifteen.
22.79° N, 100.97° E
Menglian is one of the province’s three main growing areas, with Baoshan and Dehong. It is there, at Mangzhang Farms, that the first specialty lots began around 2009, and it was at Pu’er that the Yunnan Coffee Exchange opened in January 2016. The area bridges Yunnan’s two faces: the volume that leaves for export, and the handful of farms aiming at the cup.
25.11° N, 99.17° E
The Lujiang valley follows the Nu (Salween): a warm valley floor, slopes that climb fast, and China’s oldest organised plantations — around 4,000 ha as early as the 1950s, in Typica and Bourbon. It is one of the province’s three main growing areas, and by far the most consistent in competition: seven of the top fifteen lots at Gems of Yunnan 2026, including the only Catimor near the top. It is also where Yunma’s coffees come from, at Gaosheng Manor.
23.88° N, 100.09° E
The Tropic of Cancer runs through the region: at this latitude altitude makes up for the season, and the placed lots grow around 1,600 – 1,900 m. It took both first and third place at Gems of Yunnan 2026, both washed Geishas — proof that the new wave is not playing out only in the south.
24.43° N, 98.58° E
The historic gateway: it was at Nongxianshan, near Ruili, that Typica and Bourbon crossed the Burmese border in 1914. It is also the region of volume: Hogood Coffee, founded in Dehong in 2007, built the instant-coffee supply chain here on plots consolidated under contract. And it is where diversification comes from, with the Ruili gene bank — more than 1,150 accessions, China’s largest coffee collection — and the local De-Re series. Dehong has adopted a 2025 – 2027 quality plan.
22.00° N, 100.80° E
The far south of the province, around 22°N: the lowest latitude of coffee-growing Yunnan, so the hottest, where altitude becomes decisive. Menghai placed the second lot at Gems of Yunnan 2026, a washed Geisha at 1,650 m.
25.85° N, 98.86° E
The Salween gorges, at the northern edge of the coffee zone, around 26°N: the climatic limit of Arabica in Yunnan, where the relief creates very tight microclimates. Varieties with little-documented local names are grown here, such as “Wangjin Yunka”, eleventh at Gems of Yunnan 2026 — a reminder that the province’s orchard has not been fully mapped.
25.83° N, 100.58° E
Zhukula, above Binchuan: this is where the French missionary Alfred Liétard planted Yunnan’s first coffee trees, on a date the sources put at 1892, 1902 or 1904. Around twenty century-old trees still live there. The region barely produces any more, but it holds the starting point: all Chinese coffee descends, symbolically, from that church.
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