There is a small coffeeshop beside the Pauls shop ( near Yunnan Uni.). The owner has his small roaster and various types of beans. I think he is very enthusiastic about coffe culture. I was there only once, when just opened . That time price for americano was 20 something kuai, but Ive heard that price dropped to 12kuai now. No wonder, lots of competition around. Baoshan beans are nice, if u know how to roast it. As a recommendation, high price here doesn't mean high quality. The rents are pretty high around Yunnan University ( for example ) so all these fancy 2 storey coffeeshops not necessarily have a good coffee.
I agree with posters above about Puer tea as well, but its different thread.
miky, "dude, stop derailing and ruining every single thread with your "...'there's nothing wrong in china' diatribe. .."It is obnoxious and stupid, and it is pissing everyone off, and ruining this website."
Dazzer, stop being insane. Why must you always be so negative. This thread is about coffee, stop hijacking the thread.
This is another tip for henryjne, once I was hanging around Wanda Square and found a little coffee shop brewing their coffee with LM. The price there is expensive though. Coffee is ok, and the barista told me the beans they use are from Seesaw. Thought you might interested.
@Alexez Do you have the name of the shop you mentioned?
@Kunming!Rocks Puer is a namecard of Yunnan's tea for Chinese, and tell you what, coffee of Puer will soon be recognized by the world. Puer is the only place that has the right latitude, altitude and climate to grow arabica species of coffee crops and produces China's only very high quality speciality coffee beans. The beans has drew attention to SCAA and each year COE competitions were held to score the beans. Lots were auctioned and shipped around the world.
I've been taking Yunnan coffee beans home to UK for a number of years to use as small gifts. SCAA (speciality coffee association of America) attention and endorsement is useful to know about. Pu'er (Simao) seems to produce good green teas. More than once when I've asked about the origin of green tea I've liked, the answer has been Pu'er. 'Pu'er' tea seems to suffer from lack of standards and recognisable grading. Can't see something like Cup of Excellence (COE) doing for Pu'er tea like it does for coffee.
@nnoble Very much agree with your opinion. The major problem for Pu'er tea is lack of standards and strict grading system. It's not easy to get the same quality product every time.
@nnoble Back to coffee business, if you like to take Yunnan coffee back home as gifts, I really recommend you to visit Ikon Espresso Boutique in Nanping Street, the very place to offer very high quality freshly roasted coffee beans. The owner there speaks English and of course, to my knowledge, brews the best coffee in town.
@henry
I'm NOT a coffee connoisseur, so take this with a rock of salt. The revitalized "old kunming street" (lao kunming lu?) on Zhongyi Lu and Renming Lu has several allegedly gourmet coffee shops, with gourmet prices. Walk around the renovated sections inside and you'll find several huddled together, within a 100 meters of each other.
As a gourmet - I'm guessing you can request the barista offer the beans for visual and aroma inspection prior to grinding and brewing?
Anyway - they're just around the corner and a short walk from ONE of the Starbucks on renminglu - the one closest to the Zhengyilu shopping area (and MacDonalds).
