Hitting the spot
Yunnan is famed for its tea, but Violet Law finds a love affair with coffee brewing in the province's biggest city
Something of a revolution is brewing in Kunming, one fomented in, and outside, an ever-increasing number of cafes. The radicalism is no more apparent than on a short street outside Yunnan University. The pavements of narrow Wenlin Street are choked with tables; patrons nurse their cups, lean back and watch the world go by. But in this land of tea, what they are sipping is coffee.
Eighteen months ago, Starbucks opened its first branch in the City of Eternal Spring, drawing attention to Yunnan province’s increasingly prolific coffee plantations, which are gaining long-overdue recognition at home and abroad.
As early as the late 1980s, Swiss-based Nestlé, Maxwell House of the United States and other coffee giants flocked to the province to source cheap beans. With its humid, subtropical climate and fertile soil, Yunnan has growing conditions similar to those of Costa Rica or Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, resulting in beans some procurers say deliver a far superior drink to that which Starbucks sells.
Nevertheless, the Seattle-based company is seen as being in the vanguard in the battle to win over the teaaddicted, brand-obsessed hometown crowd.
“With Starbucks’ arrival, coffee-drinking has become more popular here,” says Daniel Moon, proprietor of Coffee Break, on Wenlin Street, a stone’s throw from the university campus. “After the locals have their first taste of coffee, they’ll become the customer base, creating more opportunities for us.”
It’s a weekday afternoon and Moon, who is also a barista, is busy. One minute he is frothing milk, the next putting the finishing touches on a mocha.