Songyue Coffee Manor is located in a high elevation (1,200 m) in Yulin Hsien which area belongs to the famous Taiwan Ali Mountain. The owner, Mr. Guo, is a master of planting especially in high mountain tea. After 921 serious earthquake in Taiwan, Mr. Guo started to focus on coffee tree planting. He spent 6 years developing the best way to grow coffee in his manor, meanwhile, he imported coffee seeds from worldwide. Currently other than Geisha variety (which earned Songyue the best coffee in Taiwan and won several awards every year), he has Pacas, Maragopye, Pacamara, Ethiopia Heirloom, Typica, and SL34.
Belux Coffee Roasters has been working on Taiwan coffees for a while. 4 years ago, Lucy, our co-founder, drove 2 hours from Taichung to visit Songyue Manor and start the journey of Taiwan Geisha. In the same year, Taiwan Coffee first time to join PCA (private coffee collection) auction held by COE (Cup of Excellence). Belux Coffee Roasters not only joined the auction but also held several events to promote Taiwanese coffee. Lucy’s trip started a good relationship with Songyue. In 2022 Ben visited Songyue’s roasting studio in downtown Yulin operated by second generation, Jr. Guo. From 2021 Belux Coffee Roasters carries Geisha Natural from Songyue every year. Due to the complex floral, fruity flavor with good acidity, the coffee is sold within a few days.
The year when Ben contacted Mr. Guo for Geisha Natural green bean before coming back to Taiwan, Mr. Guo invited Ben to visit his coffee farm. 2 hours through a rugged mountain path, you can feel the high elevation mountain with microclimate. Lucy and I visited Esmeralda, Elida, and Katowa coffee farms before, but the feeling in Songyue is different. The way coffee grows there is more like a tea farm in which coffee trees are planted sections by sections by layers like arrays. Mr. Guo showed me how he applies to graft technology to grow coffee and how he grafts coffee with different varietals in the same “tree”. Wow, it’s very new to me. On the way to see different varietals of the coffee tree, I did see some people hand-picking ripe coffee cherries. That reminds me that this year the coffee tree in my house bloomsome twice, so I can “harvest” 2 times. I asked this questions to Mr. Guo. Surprisedly, he told me in Songyue they harvest several times a year. Originally, they applied the tea concept that tea produces in spring is a different taste than tea produced in summer, but after they harvest, processes, roast and taste several years, and found that the tasting result is similar. Then we keep talking about processes.
Mr. Guo showed us a dry process mill. Normally the whole cherry needs to dry 20 days in the natural process and 10 days in the washed process. He built a 2-story building, the first floor is for storage, and an open space on the second floor to sundry either cherry or parchment. Sometimes he turns on commercial fans to help air flow when drying coffee. As I know in Panama coffee farms, after the dry process they store cherry or parchment 3-6 months for “resting” to develop coffee flavor. However, the resting process does not happen in Songyue. Mr. Guo explained that they don’t have big capacity to hull the coffee, so they don’t wait a few months for resting. On the other hand, they have a schedule for hulling by capacity. This is exactly another example that different countries and different coffee farms have different coffee processes.
In the end, Mr. Guo’s wife started to brew Geisha washed for us. Songyue brought this washed process coffee to join a national competition and won the 1st this year. The coffee is so good, and you can taste orange blossom, white peach, black tea with very sweet cane sugar. Other than Geisha washed, Songyue has Geisha Honey and Natural. All of them are “Nano” lot. No doubt I bought these three processes of Geisha and I can’t wait to share them with coffee lovers in US.
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