Five Questions with Freda | Lunar New Year

Director of Coffee, Freda Yuan, curates our annual Lunar New Year coffee collection to highlight distinctive speciality coffees and the producers behind them. Each year, the range brings together thoughtful sourcing, quality, and collaboration from across Asia. This year’s collection features three expressive coffees from China, Myanmar, and Taiwan.

Every year, the selection process is genuinely fun. Our suppliers help by pre‑selecting high‑quality lots for us to taste, and my intention is always to choose the most fun and elaborate coffee from each origin. 

Sourcing Taiwanese coffee is more challenging due to logistics and the way operations are set up there. I often need to speak directly with producers and figure out how to receive samples, and sometimes the volumes simply aren’t available. It takes a lot of time and effort to get the coffee we want and bring it to the UK. But that challenge is also my favourite part. It allows me to meet producers, share what we’re doing at Origin, and showcase coffee from my home country. Despite the work involved, it’s something I’m incredibly proud of.

All the coffees in this year’s collection are naturally processed, which means they’re more fruit‑forward. You can expect to taste lots of berry and tropical fruit notes in the cup.

Quality has been steadily rising year after year. I remember when coffees from Myanmar and China weren’t really recognised in speciality coffee a decade ago. Taiwan only began gaining wider attention in 2022, when the Alliance for Coffee Excellence hosted a private auction there. Across the region, there is now far more care and attention throughout the entire journey, and that focus is reflected in the final cup.

The Year of the Horse symbolises success and prosperity. My January has already been extremely busy, so I can definitely feel that energy coming.

The producers behind Yangui have been making tea for decades. Their work requires deep attentiveness to the trees and the environment, and they carried that same sensitivity into coffee from the moment they planted their first trees. 

Tea processing also demands a high level of sensory skill: smelling the leaves, monitoring the drying, knowing exactly when the tea is ready. These abilities translate naturally into coffee processing. That care and sensory awareness shape the character of the Yangui lot, and you can definitely detect elements of that approach in the final cup.