About This Coffee
For Yalan Li, coffee is a family business. Yalan, her younger sister and her daughter work together to operate DiFan, the family’s coffee business. Yalan started the business in 1992, when she worked at a local coffee company and learned how to cultivate seedlings. She soon struck out on her own and began a nursery to sell coffee seedlings. With the profits from her success, she began her own coffee farm and then built a wet and dry mill. Today, Yalan is known as the “Iron Coffee Lady” for her courage and perseverance.
It hasn’t all been easy, however. In 1999, severe frost destroyed her first farm. Yalan didn’t give up, though. She moved her family back to their home village and opened another coffee farm there, YuLan farm, which she still operates today. When the market prices recovered from 2005 to 2012, Yalan used the money to build a wet and dry mill. In the face of extremely low prices between 2012 and 2020, Yalan refocused their efforts on producing high-quality coffees to garner higher prices for their lots. In this, Yalan is aided by her daughter, Xuelian, who graduated from university and has been studying coffee processing. Yalan and Xuelian officially established DiFan in 2019 and Xuelian has managed the company since. Xuelian focuses on adding value to cherry from YuLan farm through DiFan’s wet and dry milling operations.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Cherry is selectively handpicked and ripe, red cherry is processed at YuLan’s wet mill. Cherry is fermented for 15 days and then moved to raised beds to dry. Cherry is raked frequently to ensure even drying. After 5 days on raised beds, cherry is moved to mechanical dryers and dried slowly until it reaches appropriate humidity levels. Dried cherry is stored at DiFan’s dry mill in Pu’er for approximately 1 month before being hulled and prepared for export.
Sucafina Yunnan
Despite not being well known for coffee production, Yunnan has the ideal conditions for specialty coffee production. We are building an increasing number of coffee projects as our presence in Yunnan increases. We see a lot of potential producer-partners who have previously sold their coffees to blenders. With some investment in training and infrastructure, a lot of hard work and a strong quality control system, we just know that coffee producers in Yunnan can shine. Learn more about our operations in Yunnan.
Coffee in China
The majority of coffee produced in China is grown in the Yunnan Province in western China. Our operations in the country are young, but through our partnerships and our Yunnan-based lab and wet & dry mills, we are able to offer a range of great value coffees that display uniformity and consistent profiles.
Sucafina has a lab, office, wet mill and dry mill in the heart of Munaihe, just outside of Pu’er. This small village is where most of the key traders and dry mills in Yunnan are based. We have a small but very experienced team who are committed to delivering coffees to the high quality and ethical standards of Sucafina.
The Yunnan team has worked to develop specific products to represent Yunnan coffees for Sucafina. These products span a quality and value range to allow for a dynamic offering to our clients. In a market where consistency has not always been a focus, we are excited by this opportunity to deliver reliable, quality coffees to our customers.
We have a strong local partnership with a company that enables our in-country financing, logistics and navigation of Chinese trade.
We also looking at China as a destination market and are working on establishing a position within China selling to domestic roasters.
Yunnan is a beautiful part of the world that offers many opportunities for coffees, both as unique offerings as well as making certain blends—such as washed milds—more robust & dynamic. We welcome anyone to come visit & explore what Yunnan has to offer.