Pu'er

Pu’er is where most of China’s coffee grows. The city in southern Yunnan gave its name to a famous tea, but it now has about half of Yunnan’s coffee land, more than anywhere else in China, mostly at 1,000–2,000 metres. It calls itself China’s coffee capital, and since 2021 Pu’er coffee has been a protected origin.

The short version

• About half of Yunnan’s coffee area: 50.1% in 2019.
• About 47,000 hectares of coffee in 2025.
• 1,000–2,000 metres across most of the city’s land.
• Harvest from November to March.
• A protected origin: certification marks in 2013, national GI status in 2021.

What does Pu’er coffee taste like?

Well balanced and mellow, with a silky body and a fruity aroma, Xinhua says. A 2025 report in China Securities described a strong fruity aroma, balanced sweetness and acidity and a long aftertaste. Most of the coffee, as across Yunnan, is washed Catimor, the International Coffee Organization says.

How much coffee does Pu’er grow?

More than any other part of China, but the figures move quickly and don’t measure the same thing:

Year	Area	Output	Source
2019	52,333 ha (50.1% of Yunnan)		Chinese Academy of Sciences
2021–22 season	680,000 mu	54,000 t	Pu’er city, via The Paper
2022	679,000 mu (about 45,267 ha)	55,700 t	Xinhua
2023–24 season	679,000 mu	58,000 t of green beans	Xinhua
2025	703,900 mu (about 46,927 ha)	84,000 t a year	Xinhua

A mu is a fifteenth of a hectare. The 2025 report doesn’t say whether its 84,000 tonnes are green beans; if they are, Pu’er grew about 60% of Yunnan’s 2025 crop of 138,900 tonnes, by our calculation. A 2025 report in China Securities put Pu’er’s share at about half of Yunnan’s output.

A protected origin

Pu’er has built a brand around its coffee. In 2012 the China Fruit Marketing Association named it China’s coffee capital, and in 2013 “Pu’er coffee” and “Simao coffee” were registered as geographical-indication certification marks, with an agricultural-product GI from the Ministry of Agriculture. In 2020 Pu’er coffee, alongside Pu’er tea, was among the 100 Chinese names in the China–EU agreement on geographical indications, and in 2021 it gained national GI product protection. A national quality standard for Pu’er coffee followed in 2025, when more than 30 companies were approved to use the GI mark.

Growers, buyers and visitors

Coffee reached more than 250,000 farmers in Pu’er in 2021–22, the city says. Pu’er dates its coffee to 1892 and its large-scale planting to 1988, when the government, the World Bank and the UN Development Programme began reviving Yunnan’s coffee. Nestlé signed an agreement to invest in a coffee centre with the city in 2013, the ICO reports, and Nestlé and Starbucks both sell products made with Pu’er beans. Exports of green beans reached 462 million yuan in 2022, nearly four times the year before. In the harvest, from November to March, coffee enthusiasts and entrepreneurs from China and abroad come to the city for training and to swap ideas, Xinhua says, and its coffee farms have become tourist destinations.

Pu’er and other Chinese origins

• Coffee in China: the whole country, its output and its history.
• Baoshan: China’s oldest coffee estates, in the Nujiang valley.
• Coffee in Vietnam: Yunnan’s southern neighbour.