“I am the son of a farmer. Ever since Middle School, I knew I wanted to devote my life to farming. My life is indebted to the land, and I wanted to spend my life giving back to it.”
“I am the son of a farmer. Ever since Middle School, I knew I wanted to devote my life to farming. My life is indebted to the land, and I wanted to spend my life giving back to it.”
On the lush mountainsides of southern Yunnan, vegetation flourishes throughout the hills, giving each mountain the look of a unique patchwork quilt. Tucked away among the seams are villages full of hard-working families, cultivating the land in hopes of reaping a fruitful harvest. One of these farmers, professionally dressed and kneeling down to inspect the soil, is Mr. Hu. Born in rural China during a period of rapid social and economic change, Mr. Hu was in a unique position to overcome adversity, which helped shape him into the farmer and leader he is today.
In 1965, Mr. Hu was born into a large family. Moving between several locations growing up, he remembers only being able to eat meat once a year and experiencing extremely difficult times. Persevering in this season fostered the determination that carried him through his education. Despite being denied admission to a premiere agricultural school because of his ethnic minority status, Mr. Hu enrolled in Yunnan Tropical Crops Vocational College where he excelled as a leader and entrepreneur. After securing permission to use a small area of land that the school owned, Mr. Hu led his classmates to begin practically applying their knowledge, and they eventually began to draw a profit from their produce.
From the late 1980s until mid 1990s, Mr. Hu served within different agricultural arenas, focusing mainly on rubber and tea. He became known as a respected tea taster and evaluator.
Around this same time, China’s coffee production began a new round of commercial development as part of a government-led project assisted by the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank. Mr. Hu was right in the midst of this initiative. In 1996, he received his first seeds from Nestle and ventured into the realm of coffee.
Though there was much excitement when the first harvest came in 2003, life was not easy for the Hu’s. The family worked hard and only spent money when it came to their children’s education. With each year’s harvest, the Hu’s opted to invest all profits back into the farm and other coffee opportunities. Little did they know how great the return on their investment would be!
As the success of coffee expanded, farmers began expressing their interest and desire to grow coffee. This developed into helping villages organize cooperatives, renting land from them to grow coffee, setting up wet mills at their villages, providing them with seedlings, making fertilizer available, and completely training them in coffee production and processing. Today, Mr. Hu is overseeing nearly 700 metric tons of coffee produced annually.
As coffee made its way into the area, Mr. Hu was committed to seeing community development. “No matter what type of business you are, one cannot neglect social responsibility; we all have to invest into communities and their well-being.” In light of this passion, he began a meat initiative. His desire was to see every family with their own healthy animals to subsidize their lack of nutrition. At the project’s height, all 1400 families he oversaw had an abundance of livestock and a farm with over 60 animals. He then entrusted the project to the local villages to continue.
Around 2011, the local government and agricultural bureaus began discussing specialty coffee. Rumors of the ability to obtain hundreds of dollars per kilogram made specialty coffee attractive, but there were few who could advise on how to grow or evaluate the quality of such coffee.
This is where my story intersects with Mr. Hu, as I helped in establishing and operating Hani Coffee Co. (www.hanicoffee.com) and Yunnan Coffee Traders (www.ynct.co). Both companies are committed to seeing specialty coffee in Yunnan introduced to the world, while at the same time directly investing into communities where coffee is grown. We have been working with Mr. Hu since 2010, helping him understand quality, improve agricultural practices, and better navigate the international market.
The future of coffee in Yunnan has endless potential because of determined men and women like the Hu’s. His relentless pursuit of the highest quality coffee and investment into communities sets a great example for all who hear his story. What a pleasure and honor it is to stand alongside him working within an industry we have all grown to love! Here’s to the future of coffee in Yunnan and the many more “Mr. Hu’s” that will lead this country forward. “It is not a small thing to be able to bring a cup of coffee to the table, and we will continue working even harder to make it the best cup!”
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Photos by Brian Lippincott
