Starbucks brews plan to make Pu’er a sourcing area (Possibly The Chinese Might Prefer Not?) – by Xie Yu and Guo Anfei (China Daily) – 08:30, December 14, 2012 – reposted by M.Murong

Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee house chain, opened its first Farmer Support Center in Asia and sixth globally in Pu’er, Yunnan province, on Wednesday, in a bid to help improve the quality of local coffee beans and make Pu’er a stable sourcing region.

“The opening of the Starbucks China Farmer Support Center is a milestone in Starbucks’ continued investments in China and the Starbucks Yunnan Coffee Project,” said John Culver, president of Starbucks China and Asia-Pacific.

Culver added that Yunnan would continue to play an important role in the company’s long-term supply of premium arabica coffee, as it continues to expand its store base in China, reaching 1,500 outlets in 2015. The Seattle-based company has been purchasing locally produced coffee beans for a few years, and launched its first blend with beans from Yunnan in 2009.  Culver said the company’s purchasing volume from Yunnan has been growing, but did not elaborate.

The company brought four coffee varieties to Pu’er three years ago, and plans to expand from test planting to large-scale planting by 2014. Culver said he hoped to see these beans sell in China and globally with the “Yunnan Coffee” label. Several months ago, Starbucks set up a joint venture with Pu’er-based coffee company AiniCoffee. The joint venture has an annual processing capacity of 20,000 metric tons of green coffee beans.

Coffee planting in Yunnan dates back over a century, when French missionaries brought the first plants to this region.

Currently, the planting area of coffee in Pu’er is around 40,000 hectares, yielding 36,500 tons of beans annually, which accounts for half of China’s total growing area and output.

Qian Dewei, deputy Party chief of Pu’er, said the city plans to expand its planting area of coffee to more than 66,000 hectares by 2014, which would have an output of 100,000 tons, worth 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion).

Lu Han, director of Pu’er Coffee Industry Federation, said the city’s exports of coffee beans in 2011 and 2012 totaled 24,700 tons, worth $100 million.

“As more people overseas begin to appreciate Yunnan coffee, we also want to promote it inside China. Cooperation with Starbucks would definitely help,” he said.

The Yunnan provincial government issued a plan last year to develop the coffee industry into a strategic sector. It set a target of expanding Yunnan’s coffee growing area to 607,000 hectares by 2020, realizing an annual output of 200,000 tons, with an estimated value of 34 billion yuan.

A total of 50,000 tons of Yunnan coffee beans were sold overseas in 2011. Although this only accounted for 0.6 to 0.7 percent of the global transaction volume, the figure is a record high in the history of the province’s coffee exports

Thought provoking Commentary response by @ChineseTeaLover, some editing and ommissions has been applied for relevance.

@EthiopianChineseTeaLover says :

Groete! I suggest that Pu’er region focus ENTIRELY on tea so as to preserve the Chineseness of the region. All sourcing activities for coffee (a foreign plant) or even coffee plantations MUST be placed away from the Tea Culture centres of China. Who knows that this is an intentional ‘watering down’ to dent the sense of focus on tea culture and hence projection of being a world centre of tea production in China. Can the French imagine the Bordeaux region taken over by orchard buyers to plant common fruits (on purpose!) grape orchards bought up specifically to harm and dilute the industry of the Wine producing region?

Possibly this ‘Coffee Incursion’ could be intentional to make Chinese Tea culture weaker and less distinct by spearing this Chinese TEA REGION with the drink of the Muslims, Coffee by one of the Muslims’ subvert organisations STARBUCKS. China should redirect these attempts and tell such companies to go to Muslim areas of China instead for ‘sourcing’. Grow Pu’er tea ONLY in Pu’er region, all coffee planting can be done in the Muslim dominant areas of China.

Coffeee being grown in China’s core tea region of Pu’er appears (to me at least) to be an attempt at deculturalisation of China. For the indignant and tea culture focused among Chinese tea growers or businessmen ready to commmit to Pu’er region’s tea only status, please take action by acquiring all coffee plantations in the Pu’er region, and replanting with fine teas instead. Coffee plantations should not even be allowed in a 1000 km radius of the Pu’er region, to retain a ‘heart of tea growing culture’ region stature.

As the true heart of coffee, I feel Ethiopia should begin a Starbucks and Coffeebean subsuming franchise based around the information on the below sites :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coffee
http://www.ethiopianhistory.com/Pre-Aksum

Ethiopia’bucks’ or ‘Ethiopia Bean’ should by historical accuracy and pedigree alone, be superior in branding to Coffeebean and Starbucks. Ethiopia, both Sudans, Eritrea, Djibouti, even Yemen and Southern Arabia (Queen of Sheba’s non-Islamist territory stretched all the way across the Red Sea Strait, also see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaeans) could well re-culturise around this new franchise as well as project their true Animist cultures via the Ethiopica Coffee Bean.

A warning for our Chinese friends. Note potential word associations which could harm the Chinese, . . . inscriptions have been found in southern Arabia celebrating victories over one GDRT, described as “nagashi of Habashat [i.e. Abyssinia] and of Axum . . . OK, Nagashi can mean ‘Dragon Knight’ and by this meaning, the Han Dynasty’s fall could have been based around Arabist conquest synchronicity when Ethiopia was Islamised, leaving the Chinese spiritually open to Islamists – so until the Han Dynasts are revived . . . the Chinese should get the picture from here.

Teff (Eragrostis tef) and Enset (Ensete edulis, Ensete ventricosum) Injera (Injera is a sort of African pancake), with AUTHENTIC Ethiopica Bean coffee could be the next big thing to overtake Starbucks and Coffeebean – from Ethopia where the Chinese have been kind enough to not colonise but actually BUILD the country! Finally for fellow true blood Ethiopians, learn Afrikans and stop speaking French you Ethiopians! French speaking Ethiopians are a relic of French colonialism! As for religion, I propose we begin worshipping Sekhmet. The Lion Goddess Of Ancient Ethiopia although derived from Egypt which is as orginal as Ethiopian religions can claim to be.

Vriende van Ethiopi, sien jy !

(Post by @EthiopianChineseTeaLover, some editing has been applied for relevance)

ICCR Notes :

While ICCR may not be in tandem with the generally less refined tone (still we credit the contribution) of the above poster or the post’s relevance or accuracy (Coffee originated in Ethiopia and isn’t the preserve of Islamists or Arabists), the issue bears note as cultural focus as much as Tea is Chinese as opposed to Coffee is Muslim (African actually) and the Malaysian team’s exposition of malaise of Muslims in certain ASEAN regions towards the Chinese, has caused ICCR’s concern and hence is being reposted here.

ICCR feels the perceived ‘Coffee Incursion’ should be addressed in an as appropriate and equitable manner as possible without raising unnecessary offence between interest between governmental interests (unlike the 2nd class citizenship issue as in Malaysian Social-Economic Apartheid investigate by ICCR Malaysia). We suggest to those among the patriotic in tghe Pu’er region who are ready to retaliate, to open Pu’er Tea House Franchises (backed and endorsed by the State Tea Administration) wherever Starbucks Coffee outlets appear anywhere in the world, until all land acquisitions in the Pu’er region for coffee growing are diverted to suitable regions of China (i.e. non-specialised plantation regions).

Proxy attempts, if as the post suggests, to impinge on China’s cultural intergity (Pu’er region’s Tea Culture in this case), should be dealt with as swiftly as possible via buy backs and boycotts of offending plantations. ICCR will do some research on the supposed incursions before endorsing the above post’s postulations. Even an Imperium in restoration can be subject to jealous attacks by those who tried to down China in the past via proxy franchises posing as innocent businesses or who knows even religious fundamentalists or narrowly communal ethnic groups that disrespect overseas Chinese by refusing the same equality as per the Human Rights Charter that the same groups take for granted in China.

May the overseas Chinese find their place as equals (if not the superiors of those who try to oppress them) with all races across the world starting with ASEAN. Long live the Imperium!