Starbucks brews plan to make Pu'er a sourcing area (2)

Culver said the company's purchasing volume from Yunnan has been growing, but did not elaborate.

The company brought four coffee varieties to Pu'er three years ago, and plans to expand from test planting to large-scale planting by 2014.

Culver said he hoped to see these beans sell in China and globally with the "Yunnan Coffee" label.

Several months ago, Starbucks set up a joint venture with Pu'er-based coffee company AiniCoffee. The joint venture has an annual processing capacity of 20,000 metric tons of green coffee beans.

Coffee planting in Yunnan dates back over a century, when French missionaries brought the first plants to this region.

Currently, the planting area of coffee in Pu'er is around 40,000 hectares, yielding 36,500 tons of beans annually, which accounts for half of China's total growing area and output.

Qian Dewei, deputy Party chief of Pu'er, said the city plans to expand its planting area of coffee to more than 66,000 hectares by 2014, which would have an output of 100,000 tons, worth 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion).