CORAL YANG 杨小宇

I fell in love with coffee in Shanghai’s great expansion of the specialty coffee scene. For me, coffee is some version of Willy Wonka’s multiple-course dinner chewing gum — it becomes much more than itself as you taste it, a complete feast of flavors and imageries, a gift from the mountain and rain.

I delved deep into coffee in the past years, obtaining a Q-grader certification from Pu’er, Yunnan, a core coffee producing region in China, and visited the farms multiple times. I was also a cupper at the 2023 Yunnan Coffee Flavor Map, the largest cupping event with over 700 Q-graders in a collective effort to understand the unique characteristics of Yunnan coffee.

I have also written for a green coffee trader based in Shanghai. By conducting interviews with the coffee farmers of Latin America, from Guatemala to Peru, I tried to bridge the gap between producers and coffee-lovers, telling the human stories of a fruit that stands at the intersection of colonial histories, indigenous struggles, climate change, a globalized economy, and family heritage.

My work on coffee continues as I currently work on a story exploring coffee in Hainan, China, through the repatriation of overseas Chinese to the island. I am also constantly looking for opportunities to connect with coffee producers in Latin America, and to share their insights with roasters, baristas and consumers in Asia.