Urban Dwellers Coffee Yunnan Fuyan

This morning I have a coffee from a part of the world I didn’t even know coffee grows, so I’m super excited to try this out! Without further ado…

Urban Dwellers Coffee

Purchase this coffee directly for $14/12oz (and other options available, including green)

Sprudge article on coffee in Yunnan, China

Fresh Cup Magazine Article on Yunnan coffee by Yunnan Coffee Traders’ Tim Heinze

Ironclad Coffee Roasters

URBAN DWELLERS COFFEE YUNNAN FUYAN

I’ve seen this coffee pop up on my social media radar a few times and a quick message had a small bag of Yunnan Fuyan, from Urban Dwellers Coffee, on its way to me. They were kind enough to send some green coffee to me, too, so I could roast it up myself, which I am anxious to do when the weather warms up a bit. Urban Dwellers Coffee are located in Springfield, Missouri, and I couldn’t find out much else about the business itself, although in all fairness their tag line is, “Because it’s not about us.” Urban Dwellers appears to be a for-profit business that sells products like this coffee and bracelets and handbags from Nepal. They give a lot of their profits back to organizations like One Life, according to their site. Their Instagram popped up in the late summer of 2017 and that’s what I was able to find, but I think when a company is Internet-based and selling global products, where they are located is a lot less important than I think. I always want to know, though! LOL

Getting to Urban Dwellers’ Yunnan coffee, the bag says it is roasted by Ironclad Coffee Roasters in Richmond, VA. I’ve reviewed some of their coffee in the past and enjoyed it a lot, so we know this coffee is being handled by pros, which is great! Coffee for a cause is one thing, but coffee for a cause that doesn’t lose sight of the coffee drinkers, who expect a good product, is even better! Until about two weeks ago I didn’t even know China grows coffee, although it makes sense. There are three regions in China growing coffee, two of which grow mostly Robusta. Yunnan is the largest of these provinces and grows mostly commercial grade Arabica, although there are farms paying more attention to quality and breaking into the specialty coffee market. I linked to two very detailed articles above that give you a lot more info about coffee in Yunnan and they’re worth the read. Yunnan is in southern China and borders Vietnam and Laos to the south and Myanmar to the west. Pu’er is located here, and for tea drinkers, that is certainly a familiar name. Urban Dwellers’ coffee is also from Pu’er and it’s grown around 1600-1650masl, although it looks like coffee in this region could grow as high as 2000 meters in some places. Most of the coffee, including this one from Yunnan Estate, from Yunnan is Catimor and is grown in full sun, plantation style. This is a fully washed coffee and Urban Dwellers gives us tasting notes of, “Cocoa and mild nutty dry fragrance with peach/stonefruit, caramel, kiwi, tomatoes.”

I am using my standard pourover method of a 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of Third Wave Water in a notNeutral Gino dripper. I use an Aergrind grinder and this one brewed a little fast at around 2:40, not including a long bloom. I’d call this a medium to medium-light bodied coffee. It has a light caramel sweetness right up front and, overall, a pretty mild-mannered presentation in the cup, which is OK because not every cup needs to be insanely complex! The perceived acidity is definitely mellow in this coffee and I get high notes that hint at lemon candy but lean more toward the bit of tartness I get from dried apricots. Maybe a bit of green apple in there, too. This isn’t a big tomato bomb like some Kenyan coffees can be, but the sweetness, mild acidity and a bit of a savory note in this coffee do certainly lend toward a tomato vibe, especially in the second half of the sip and into the finish. I’m not sure I would identify that on my own or if it’s the suggestion from the label that is doing it for me, but either way, I do get a little bit of a tomato thing going on with this coffee. The finish is a little sweet on my palate and shifts to a dry aftertaste with cocoa and a relatively big roast note that I rather enjoy that doesn’t really come through in the flavor of the coffee itself. Going back to the middle of the sip there is a peachy sweetness to the cup, too, that is more of a “feel” than a peach flavor, if that makes any sense.

My overall impression for this coffee is that it is balanced and a very easy drinker. It has enough complexity to be interesting and to give coffee geeks things to look for and identify, but it’s also an easy to drink, satisfying morning brew that doesn’t assert itself on the palate without being invited. For a specialty coffee market that is really in its infancy in Yunnan, this is encouraging because this is a nice, pleasant, satisfying cup and that makes for a good base to grow from.