(Yicai Global) Nov. 2 -- Yunnan is facing a ‘crisis of trust’ after rumors claiming the southwestern Chinese province uses artificial flavors in the production of coffee beans have been drawing much attention.

Many clients this year have been questioning whether our floral coffee uses artificial flavors, a person working in a company in the coffee business in Yunnan said. The coffee beans we make have no artificial flavors, they added.

Yunnan is a major coffee producer in China that boasts Starbucks, Nescafe, and Luckin Coffee among its main clients. The coffee planting area in Yunnan was about 93,000 hectares, with a total output of 108,700 tons of coffee beans last year, according to statistics from the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the province.

A Chinese coffee lover said he stopped using coffee beans from Yunnan because he is worried they have artificial flavors.

I have seen artificial flavors used only in the subdivision of specialty coffee beans, those with special flavors grown under particular climates and geographical conditions, an insider working in the coffee roasting field told Yicai Global.

Some heads of coffee farms and people working in the coffee roasting field told Yicai Global that they have no idea whether artificial flavors can be used in coffee beans, even though China had already specified that artificial flavors are forbidden in the whole production process of coffee in 2015.

Specialty coffee beans took up only 8 percent of the total market in Yunnan. But their profit is more than double that of standard commercial coffee beans, which is why artificial flavors are used, a green coffee bean trader noted.

Yunnan has put establishing standards and transparent procedures for specialty coffee beans on the agenda. The province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a document in September to lay out requirements for inspecting the quality and other indexes of specialty coffee beans.

Editor: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione