China Chiliarch Washed

Tasting Notes: White Flowers · White Tea · Cane Sugar

From Chiliarch Coffee Estate in Pu'er, Yunnan — washed, 2026 harvest. The clean, delicate half of the Chiliarch story: white flowers on the nose, a soft white-tea body, and cane sugar sweetness that lingers without ever getting heavy.

Yunnan was tea country long before it was coffee country — and in this cup you can taste the family resemblance. A place that spent centuries learning patience, turning its hand to something new.

Origin

• Estate: Chiliarch Coffee Estate
• Region: Pu'er — Yunnan, China
• Altitude: 900–1,300 m
• Process: Washed
• Varietal: Catimor
• Crop: 2026 season
• Roast: Medium

In The Cup

• Body: Light, tea-like
• Acidity: Soft, clean
• Sweetness: Cane sugar
• Finish: Clean, delicate, floral

About The Origin

Screen 16.

About The Varietal

Catimor is not one variety but a group of dwarf, high-yielding lines bred by crossing Caturra with the Timor Hybrid (a natural arabica x robusta cross), first at CIFC in Portugal from 1967, for resistance to coffee leaf rust. It makes up the great majority of Yunnan's plantings; its cup reputation is modest, so ripe picking and careful processing at altitude do most of the work in a clean, sweet lot.

How It Was Processed

Washed: ripe cherries are pulped, the sticky mucilage is left to ferment until it loosens, then washed off and the parchment dried. Removing the fruit before drying gives a cleaner, lighter-bodied cup in which florals and acidity read clearly, hence the white-flower and white-tea character next to the estate's heavier natural. TCE's lot is screen 16.

Brewing Notes

Best as filter or pour-over, water just off the boil, where the white florals and tea-like body open up. Clean and sweet enough for a gentle espresso if you like a lighter cup.

Brewed With Purpose

Roasted in small batches at our Maxwell Road roastery by baristas writing a new chapter. Every bag helps fund barista and life-skills training through The TCE Academy — because marginality is not destiny.

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" — Isaiah 43:19