Even today, Baden travels to Yunnan regularly to help the coffee-bean growers learn how to use new, sophisticated equipment and invest in their business.

The key to improving their livelihoods, he says, is to provide them with direct access to the market and eliminate the need for middlemen who take up a chunk of the earnings.

It has only been about four years since the company started, but the company has already delivered results on different fronts.

For example, small-scale farmers now earn 3 yuan ($0.43) per kilogram of coffee cherries from Coffee Commune, up from just 1.5 yuan which they received from the intermediaries previously.

"This meant that they are able to make repairs to their homes and improve their plantations, and even save some money for a rainy day," Baden says.

With Chinese consumers starting to become more interested in drinking coffee, Yunnan is also realizing the change. It aims to grow more premium beans.

Last month, the provincial government issued a document that mandated increasing the deep processing of beans and production of fine coffee products.

By 2024, the province aims to lift the rate of premium coffee bean production to 30 percent of its total output, and the deep-processing rate of coffee beans to 80 percent.