yeah but why import something from half way across the world when it's grown locally? the coffee that is grown in yunnan is good enough. for me, anyway.

First of all the taste of coffee like any other drinks is a bit a personal choice. Although there are definitely bad fermented coffees around, one can say that the average Yunnan coffee quality is considered by coffee experts as reasonable. The quality of the coffee is to a high extend depending how it has been processed after harvesting and how it is made as drink. Arabica is the best variety to drink, but there are >100 varieties. Robusta is more used for Instant Coffee. Mixtures are made to bring the price down, since Arabica is a lot more expensive than Robusta. Advise go around and sample.

The best coffees are arabica, but there is poor quality arabica cofee. There is also good quality robusta.

The cheap robusta is used for instant coffee, yes, but there are top coffees that use good quality robusta in the blends. Especially for espresso as the caffeine content is higher.
Some arabica coffee can be a little light in flavour and some sour and also lack the bitter back taste that some coffee drinkers like. Robusta can be used to provide these additional flavour accents.

Manlaojiang, sold at Salvador's and other establishments around town is high quality, though you could get much better coffee for better prices elsewhere in the world.

Thank you all for the replies. I know the Hanni coffee people because we bought a few tons of green coffee from them for our roastery in north china. I will go buy some Roasted Hanni coffee tomorrow.

It sounds like there are no shops in town that really focus on making craft or specialty coffee from what I'm reading that many local roasters either that are producing a good product.

Since you guys starting talking about Arabica and Robusta I thought I would add my thoughts. In yunnan almost all of the coffee grown here is a variety call Catimor which is technically an Arabica but it was originally a hybrid of both Robusta and Arabica. It is often known to be a little flat or boring to drink but with more and more research being done and processing methods improving there is starting to be some really good Catimor coffees coming out of Yunnan.

Ok well enough coffee nerd talk but if anyone finds an awesome little shop some place let me know and I'll of the same for you all.

thanks for the info.

Any opinions on Vietnam coffee. It's known for growing large amounts of poor beans, but I enjoyed the coffee in pretty much all the cafes I tried there. Is it because they just use copious amounts of ground coffee?

I roast my own green beans in the microwave, nice to havd the house smell like a brulerie.

Lanna Coffee's Kinari roast is Arabica Catimoor and claims to have flavours of dark cocoa, molasses and wild herbs. They also have other roasts but we like this one. Slice of Heaven sells it for 49 kuai for 250 grams.

@AlexKMG:
I love the Vietnamese coffee, best I've found around these parts, I've tried the beans, the stuff for use in the French press and the instant. All taste great. Highly recommended. There's a place over in the North that sells it really cheap. Packs of instant, 24 sachets for 20 kuai. Tubs of beans, not sure of the price, but should be cheap. And jars of instant for 15 kuai. They also have lots of Thai coffee in the same shop.