People who grew up in Yunnan always have an instinct to bring their hometown flavor to the world. Jia Yang, the founder of Aoyin Coffee, is such a Yunnan native. Now, with a creative experiment that transcends tea and coffee, tradition and modernity, Yunnan coffee has completed an aesthetic upgrade in flavor – blending natural floral fragrances into coffee beans to create a creative coffee brand with a unique blend of Maillard flavor – Aoyin Coffee.
Starting from Baoshan: Hometown Sentiment in a Cup of Coffee
In Jiayang's childhood memories, there is a faint fragrance of coffee trees blooming on Gaoligong Mountain. As one of the earliest regions in China to cultivate coffee, Baoshan in Yunnan is not only his hometown, but also the starting point of his taste perception. As a heavy coffee addict and enthusiast, Jia Yang, who is nearly 40 years old, had the idea of making his own Yunnan coffee after tasting almost all the uneven coffee flavors in the market.
The coffee planting area at an altitude of over 1400 meters in Gaoligong Mountain is difficult for four-wheel drive vehicles to reach, but the dual benefits of high altitude and high heat make the coffee beans here more diverse in flavor levels. Standing on the misty mountainside, he secretly said to himself, "What I want to do is not just a good Yunnan coffee, but also a sincere work that can let the world taste the local customs of Yunnan." This persistence rooted in the homeland has become the fundamental brand DNA of Aoyin Coffee.
Inspiration Collision: When Jasmine Tea Meets Yunnan Coffee
The starting point of brand creativity originated from a late night team brainstorming session with Jia Yang at Qiushui Horseshoe Advertising Company in Beijing. He accidentally poured the jasmine tea at hand into the Yunnan coffee being brewed, and the floral and coffee aromas unexpectedly blended, creating a rich yet harmonious layering. This accidental attempt inspired him to introduce traditional Chinese fermentation techniques into coffee processing.
In the following six months, Jia Yang continuously tried to collide Eastern tea making techniques with Western coffee roasting methods, and concluded from several failed experiments in the office that "fermentation must be completed within a few hours after the flowers are just picked". So he led his team back and forth between Gaoligong Mountain Coffee Plantation and Hengzhou Zhonghua Jasmine Garden in Guangxi, trying to gradually transform inspiration into a replicable craftsmanship system.
Manufacturing process: allowing coffee beans to "breathe" the fragrance of flowers
Drawing on the jasmine tea fermentation techniques inherited from the Ming Dynasty, and based on the national standard GB/T 34779 "Technical Specifications for Jasmine Tea Processing" and the physical characteristics of coffee beans, the Aoyin team carried out process innovation in the humid and hot factory in Hengzhou, Guangxi. From precise control of flower picking timing to flower feeding and maintenance, all night flower ventilation and heat dissipation during the fermentation process, and early morning flower screening and drying after fermentation, the balance and fusion of coffee aroma and jasmine aroma were finally achieved after repeated experiments.
Each batch of Yunnan coffee beans needs to be co fermented with freshly picked jasmine flowers for three days and three nights, during which the flowers are manually turned every 8 hours to allow the fragrance to naturally seep into the bean core. The whole process does not add essence, and the flavor fusion is achieved by the control of time and temperature. This seemingly traditional approach actually achieves a clear combination of coffee aroma and floral fragrance, with a delicate taste and long-lasting fragrance.
More than Jasmine: Building an Oriental Flavor Coffee Matrix
After the successful fermentation of jasmine coffee, Aoyin further integrated oriental unique flowers such as osmanthus and gardenia into coffee creation, forming a series of products such as "Lancang Jasmine", "Top Osmanthus", and "Gardenia Duo Duo". Each type of floral material corresponds to fresh flowers from different origins, expressed in a style that is either elegant, warm, or rich through differentiated fermentation techniques and professional baking curves. The product form has also extended from ear bags and coffee beans to NFC coffee cold extract, adapting to diverse drinking scenarios.
From a coffee bean in Baoshan, Yunnan to a cup of fragrant coffee today, Aoyin has not only achieved innovative breakthroughs in flavor, but also explored a cultural expression path belonging to Yunnan coffee – respecting nature, integrating tradition, and caring for the real emotions and living scenes of contemporary people.
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