At a Glance (China Coffee Network): Drawing on its selenium-rich volcanic soil, layered river-valley climate, and diverse ethnic culture, Nujiang Prefecture is transforming its coffee industry: superior seeds and methods at the front end, value-added processing in the middle, and coffee-tourism integration at the back—lifting coffee from extensive planting to a standardized, specialty, full-chain development, turning small coffee cherries into “golden beans” fueling rural revitalization. The prefecture’s planting area has surpassed 100,000 mu, with a fine-variety coverage of 90%.
In recent years, drawing on its selenium-rich volcanic soil, layered river-valley climate, and rich ethnic-cultural resources, Nujiang Prefecture has driven the transformation and upgrading of its coffee industry. At the front end it focuses on fine varieties and good practices, in the middle on value-added processing, and at the back on coffee-tourism integration—lifting coffee from extensive planting to standardized, specialty, full-chain development, and turning small coffee cherries into “golden beans” that boost all-around rural revitalization and raise local incomes.
Guarding the Source of Quality: Fine Varieties and Good Practices Yield Canyon Flavor
Right now, the coffee on both banks of the Nujiang River is welcoming this year’s first harvest; the hillside coffee gardens are filled with the air of a bountiful season.
Just past 9 a.m., the coffee garden in Jiunaishan Natural Village, Manying Village, Shangjiang Town, Lushui City, is already bustling. Growers, in twos and threes, move among the coffee trees; with a light pinch of the fingers, plump red ripe cherries are gently picked and dropped into baskets—the year’s toil turning into the joy of harvest.
“This year’s coffee is growing well and the price is good too; the income from selling 100 jin of fresh cherries can buy 400 jin of rice—enough grain for a family for half a year,” Yang Yingkuan, Party branch secretary and group head of Jiunaishan Natural Village, calculated for the reporter. “These coffee trees are the money trees right at our common people’s doorstep!”
Jiunaishan Natural Village has over 40 years of coffee-growing history; all 149 households grow coffee, with a planting area exceeding 1,900 mu and a fruiting area over 1,100 mu. In 2025, at peak harvest the village’s fresh-cherry yield reached 2,000 jin per mu, raising the average household income by over RMB 100,000.
Behind the eye-catching figures lies the local growers’ adherence to the “all-red-cherry picking” standard.
“In earlier years we didn’t understand what specialty meant; we picked green and red cherries together and couldn’t sell at a good price. In recent years everyone has come to understand that only all-red cherries yield good flavor and fetch a higher purchase price, so when picking we all aim for the reddest batch on the tree,” said Yang Yingkuan.
While strictly controlling picking standards, Nujiang has deeply cultivated the selection and promotion of fine varieties, reshaping the industry’s landscape from the source. It has successively introduced 17 new varieties including the “Dere” and “Yunka” series, and completed the cultivation of two new varieties—”Dere 211–Gaoligong” and “Biluo Snow.” To date, the prefecture’s coffee planting area has surpassed 100,000 mu, with a fine-variety coverage of 90%.
Lou Yuqiang, deputy director of the Lushui Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau and associate researcher at the Tropical and Subtropical Cash Crops Research Institute of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explained: “The purpose of introducing abundant specialty-coffee germplasm resources is to screen excellent varieties suited to local soil and water with outstanding comprehensive benefits. Quality seedlings paired with scientific management techniques, together with Nujiang’s high-plateau, high-latitude, high-heat ‘three-high’ climate and the selenium-rich soil of the Gaoligong Mountains, allow the coffee beans to accumulate ample internal compounds, ultimately giving birth to the distinctive flavor of Nujiang specialty coffee.”
Processing Brought to the “Doorstep”: Full-Chain Freshness Locking Adds Value
Turning good fruit into good product, processing is the key link. To solve the challenge of “fresh cherries hard to get down the mountain and processing far away,” Nujiang has built primary-processing facilities right at the “doorstep” of the planting areas.
Entering the Lushui Fuxing Coffee Planting Farmers’ Cooperative, the cherries just picked by growers can enter primary processing at the first moment, going through pulping, floatation, and drying to become parchment green beans.
“For nearby growers’ cherries, we can guarantee primary processing within 8 to 12 hours. Our products are mainly honey-processed, with no secondary fermentation step, so we need to process the fresh fruit in a short time to lock more sweetness and freshness into the beans,” explained Su Fuwei, person in charge of the Lushui Fuxing Coffee Planting Farmers’ Cooperative.
Primary processing solves the “fresh” issue nearby, while deep processing determines the height of “value.” While consolidating the foundation of primary processing, Nujiang, following the approach of “cultivating excellence, strengthening leaders, and revitalizing stock,” uses the Spice Industry Park as an aggregation carrier to vigorously cultivate and attract deep-processing enterprises, pushing the chain toward the high end of the value chain.
Inside the specialty coffee processing plant of Nujiang Tropical High-Tech Spice Industry Development Co., Ltd., the low hum of machinery mingles with the roasted aroma of coffee. On the plant floor, the roasted-bean production line runs rapidly; green beans pass through intelligent color sorting, roasting, cooling, weighing, and sealing to become bag after bag of roasted coffee products.
“To date we have built four production lines—drip bags, concentrate liquid, bagged beans, and freeze-dried powder—and developed over 10 quality differentiated products that meet the diverse needs of different consumer groups, with an annual roasted-bean capacity of up to 2,000 tonnes,” said Wang Aiting, person in charge of the specialty coffee processing plant of Nujiang Tropical High-Tech Spice Industry Development Co., Ltd.
In August 2026, Salween Coffee (Nujiang) Co., Ltd. officially went into production, mainly engaged in deep processing of freeze-dried coffee powder, breaking the history of Nujiang Prefecture having no large freeze-dried instant-coffee producer, and establishing strategic cooperation with 11 enterprises, effectively driving the coordinated development of upstream and downstream chains such as local coffee-bean planting, product packaging, and warehousing logistics, with a long-term stable employment of around 90 people, tangibly boosting local industrial efficiency and residents’ incomes.
“Our production equipment is at a leading domestic level, with an estimated annual capacity of 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes and annual output value of RMB 350 million to 380 million. Currently 70% of our products supply the domestic market and 30% are exported overseas; whether in technical strength or product quality, we hold a clear industry advantage,” said Shi Jianche, factory director of Salween Coffee (Nujiang) Co., Ltd.
“In the past Nujiang had no deep-processing plants; coffee beans had to be shipped to other prefectures for processing, and the round trip not only cost more but also meant greater loss. Now it’s better—from the cherries being picked to the final product reaching the customer, it can be completed in just over 20 days,” Su Fuwei reflected.
To date, Nujiang has planned and built 7 fresh-cherry processing centers, expected to be fully completed and operational this season; 5 deep-processing plants, of which 4 are already operational; and 19 coffee production lines with a processing capacity of 25,000 tonnes, forming a processing cluster of “leading enterprises guiding, small and medium enterprises gathering.”
Using Coffee to String Together Canyon Scenery: From “Selling Beans” to “Selling Experiences”
The canyons hold majestic mountain-and-water scenery, the villages hold brilliant and colorful ethnic culture, and the coffee holds its unique aroma and growth story.
In recent years, Nujiang has jumped out of a purely agricultural mindset and pushed the deep integration of the coffee industry and cultural tourism, persisting in using coffee as the medium and tourism to energize industry. It has turned coffee fields, processing workshops, and specialty manors into immersive scenes that can be toured, participated in, tasted, and studied, upgrading from “selling beans” to “selling scenery, selling experiences, selling culture.”
Leveraging the advantages of the G219 cultural-tourism corridor, Nujiang has created the “G219 Coffee Quest” premium route. Heading north along the beautiful Nujiang Highway, cave coffee, tin-can coffee, cliffside coffee, and other specialty coffee manors and viral check-in spots have successively landed; coffee once scattered in deep mountain gullies and little known is now strung together like beads on a chain by a single “G219 Coffee Quest.”
The Nuxiaoke · Treehouse Coffee premium selection store in Lushui City, built around a kapok tree, cleverly integrates the coffee bar, viewing seats with the tree crown and branches, contrasting delightfully with the surging river and towering canyon, and has become a popular check-in spot for citizens and tourists thanks to its unique shape and excellent views.
“The decor here is very distinctive; sitting down with a cup of coffee, facing the river breeze and overlooking the canyon, I completely relaxed—it felt especially comfortable,” said Geng Xiaoming, a visitor from Chuxiong with a smile. “I’ve already checked in at four or five coffee shops in Nujiang; each has its own character and the experience is fantastic.”
The Nujiang Specialty Coffee Culture Week, held for multiple consecutive sessions, integrates coffee competitions, industry forums, rural markets, and ethnic song-and-dance, using coffee as the medium to let canyon scenery, ethnic culture, and specialty coffee empower one another. The aroma of coffee has become a fresh name card for Nujiang’s cultural tourism. During the 2026 National Day holiday, Nujiang Prefecture received nearly 200,000 domestic tourists and achieved total tourism spending of over RMB 140 million, a record high.
From a traditional crop in deep mountain gullies, to a standardized, specialty, full-chain sunrise industry, and then to a “canyon new name card” with deep integration of the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors, Nujiang’s coffee industry is completing a profound transformation.
A single small coffee cherry strings together the complete chain of planting, processing, and cultural tourism, and also strings together the happy life of canyon sons and daughters increasing their incomes and becoming prosperous.
Yang Yuhua, deputy leader of the Nujiang Coffee Industry Task Force and deputy director of the Nujiang Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau, said: “Next, we will continue to improve the benefit-linkage mechanism so that the vast majority of growers share in the dividends of industrial development; relying on the industry alliance and industry associations, we will consolidate base management, perfect full-chain standards, and shore up processing shortfalls, and polish the ‘Nuxiaoke’ regional public brand; we will connect coffee bases, manors, and experience formats along the G219 highway to build a distinctive coffee-tourism integration IP, continuously broaden market channels, and turn resource advantages into tangible results that promote farmers’ income growth, striving to drive the high-quality development of Nujiang’s specialty coffee industry.” (Lushui Media Center: Gao Qingying, Hu Chenlan)
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- Original article: Kunming Information Port: 《从”枝头红”到”杯中香”！怒江把一粒咖啡豆做成三产融合的”金豆子”》
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