More lucrative than growing tea, coffee enjoys a new popularity among China's younger generation with a thirst for Starbucks and Nestle. By David Pierson Los Angeles Times December 29, 2012 Fu Xiafeng harvests red coffee berries at a plantation. Farmers are finding that growing coffee is more lucrative than tea. (David Pierson, Los Angeles Times / December 29, 2012 PU'ER, China — This remote southwestern city near the borders of Laos and Myanmar is named after one of China's most famous teas, grown on mountain terraces painstakingly carved out of the region's rich red soil. But in recent years, pu'er tea has surrendered prime real estate for a more lucrative brew: coffee. Chinese farmers have taken to the new crop, which thrives in high-altitude areas of Yunnan province and commands up to three times as much money as tea. "My sole income depends on coffee now," said Ma Jiaying, a farmer from a dab-sized hamlet in Pu'...