2025 First Gems of Yunnan Green Coffee Competition wraps up

The 2025 First Gems of Yunnan Green Coffee Competition (Yunnan CoE Pilot Program) successfully concluded on May 16, 2025, in Baoshan city, southwest China's Yunnan Province.

An international professional jury consisting of 12 foreign judges from the U.S., Australia, South Korea, and other countries, along with two domestic experts, conducted the final evaluation of the competing beans.

Photo shows a scene of the 2025 First Yunnan Green Coffee Competition (Yunnan CoE Pilot Program) in Baoshan city, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Photo courtesy of Luckin Coffee)

The jury selected 19 winning green coffee beans from among 144 participating teams. The top 10 specialty beans were auctioned offline to global buyers, with 100 percent of the transaction proceeds directly benefiting coffee farmers.

The CoE is one of the most prestigious green coffee bean competitions worldwide, known for its rigorous scoring system and international participation.

The Yunnan CoE pilot was jointly organized by the Specialty Coffee Society of Yunnan and the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), with Luckin Coffee, a Chinese coffee chain, serving as a strategic partner to promote the internationalization of Yunnan specialty coffee.

This marks the first time the CoE pilot has entered Yunnan, signifying the historic incorporation of Yunnan as a coffee-growing area into an authoritative international evaluation system.

Photo shows Luckin Coffee's green coffee bean processing plant in Baoshan city, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Photo courtesy of Luckin Coffee)

In recent years, China's coffee industry has flourished. As the country's primary coffee-producing region, Yunnan accounts for about 98 percent of national coffee production. In 2022, the province introduced policies to support the development of specialty coffee and deep processing. By the end of 2024, the coffee plantations in Yunnan covered over 1.26 million mu (84,000 hectares), with coffee production exceeding 140,000 tonnes and being exported to 29 countries and regions.

Luckin Coffee established a green coffee bean processing plant in Baoshan in early 2024. By introducing the water-efficient coffee cherry processing production lines from Brazil and Colombia, this plant has an annual processing capacity of 5,000 tonnes of coffee cherries.

Photo shows equipment in Luckin Coffee's green coffee bean processing plant in Baoshan city, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Photo courtesy of Luckin Coffee)

As Chinese coffee enterprises, represented by Luckin Coffee, expand globally, they continue to empower the industry through industrialization, branding, and digitalization, strengthening Yunnan coffee's presence in international markets.

The coffee industry in Baoshan city has thrived. Currently, the comprehensive output value of the city's coffee industry has reached 9 billion yuan ($1.25 billion). The city ranks at the forefront in terms of deep processing rate, the rate of premium coffee beans, the number of provincial-level leading coffee enterprises, and specialty coffee estates.