Coffee Varieties

Arabica? Robusta? Typica? Gesha? Pacamara? SL28? Bourbon? Random words, and a type of alcohol? Let’s dig in and explore these terms and some coffee genetics and history.

All of our coffees are currently 100% Coffea arabica, or arabica coffee. Arabica coffee has a much more pleasant profile (and actually, half the caffeine) than Coffea canephora, or robusta coffee, does. There’s currently an effort to grow better-tasting robusta coffee, but none of it is particularly great at this point. As the climate continues to change, robusta will become more and more important in the coffee industry.

To understand coffee varieties, it can be very helpful to look at grapes and wine as a comparison. Nearly all wine is produced from grapes that are 100% Vitis vinifera. Vitis is the genus and vinifera is the species - remember biology class? Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. But of course, not all Vitis vinifera grapes are the same. We all know there are different varieties of grapes used to make wine: cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc, merlot, sangiovese, malbec, trebbiano, riesling, gruner veltliner, chardonnay, the list goes on and on. And of course, each of these varieties of Vitis vinifera produces a wine that tastes different, even when grown side-by-side in the exact same conditions. Arabica coffee is no different - there are lots of different varieties of arabica coffee trees/beans, and these produce coffees that taste different!

We could also look at craft beer. Beer is a bit different because it is a multi-ingredient product, whereas coffee and wine are really single-ingredient products (we could debate about yeasts and bacteria that are present, especially if external ones are added, but with beer have both hops and malt). With very hop-dominant beers becoming very popular recently, more and more attention is being paid to the variety of hop(s) that is being used, as of course, it has a large impact on the beer’s flavor profile. Cascade, Citra, Centennial, Simcoe, and Mosaic are just a few examples - you might find the hop type listed on your bottle/can.

Note that technically some (most) of the “varieties” that we will discuss below are actually what botanists would more properly call “cultivars” as they are the product of human intervention rather than strictly naturally-occurring. But actual plant breeders would say that a “variety” is anything that has been bred (with human intervention) for certain characteristics, and a “landrace” is simply a wild plant. There’s also a distinction between a coffee plant variety and the beverage that is made using a single coffee plant variety, which should be called a varietal. Frankly, while we recognize, appreciate, and prize the work that scientists have done and are doing to give us the delicious coffee varieties that are available today, these distinctions are pointless (unless you are actually involved in the selection and breeding processes) and off-putting to us.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the more popular “varieties” of Coffea arabica.

Gesha (or Geisha) - This is probably the most famous variety. It is an Ethiopian landrace that was taken from Ethiopia, near the mountain of Gesha (hence the name), in the 1930s and sprung to fame in 2005 when a Panamanian Gesha scored exceptionally high at the Best of Panama competition and sold at auction for record price. Cup quality is exceptionally high, and it is noted for its perfume-like jasmine florals and peach-like fruit notes. There are several genetically different varieties that are all colloquially called “Gesha,” all coming from the same area of Ethiopia (the diversity of coffee varieties in Ethiopia is simply incredible). The Panamanian Gesha, T2722, is generally regarded as being the best in terms of cup profile.

SL28 and SL34 - "SL" stands for Scott Laboratories. This was a British-backed research organization based in Kenya in the early/mid-1900s when Kenya was under colonial rule and did a tremendous amount of work selecting different breeds of arabica coffee. The goal was increased rust/disease resistance, tolerance to drought, high productivity, and high quality. SL28 and SL34 are the two most well-known varieties that came out of this program. They are indeed tolerant to drought, have high productivity, and are exceptionally high quality, but are prone to disease. They were really only found in any meaningful quantity in Kenya for many years, but farmers all over the world are beginning to experiment with small amounts of SL28 & SL34 trees, as they do with other exceptionally high quality varieties like gesha and pink bourbon.

Caturra - This is a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety, first discovered in Brazil in the early 1900s. Very common in Central/South America. Highly susceptible to disease. World Coffee Research only gives it a “Good” quality potential, but we find that Caturras typically have excellent, bright acidity. As the trees are quite small, and the branches grow quite densely, productivity (amount of coffee cherry per acre of planting) is very high, making it a good choice for farmers prior to the current coffee leaf rust issues. In Colombia, much of the Caturra production has been replaced by Castillo, which has some Caturra genetics but is disease-resistant, and, sadly, not as high-quality in terms of flavor.

Bourbon - One of the most famous, and genetically-significant varieties in the world, though it isn’t actually grown in tremendous volume anymore. Originally from Ethiopia (as is thought to be the case of all arabica coffee), it was brought to Yemen and then to Bourbon Island (formerly La Réunion) in the early 1700s. It was brought to Latin America in the 1900s and is the basis for many of the newer varieties that are more commonly grown now, including Caturra, Catuai, and Mundo Novo. Cup quality is excellent at high altitude but it isn’t particularly high-yielding and is susceptible to disease.

Typica - The “other” famous and genetically-significant variety. In a crazy journey, like Bourbon, it was brought from Ethiopia to Yemen, but then to India and Indonesia. In 1706, a single plant was brought from Java to a botanical garden in the Netherlands, from where a single plant was shared with France in 1714. From the Netherlands, this variety went to Brazil, and separately, from France, it went to Martinique and was taken by the English from there to Jamaica, where it is still grown and known as Jamaica Blue Mountain. From there, seeds made it to Cuba, and eventually El Salvador and Costa Rica by the mid-19th century. Most of Latin America’s coffee production was Typica until about 1950, but it has mostly been replaced with newer varieties that are more productive and more disease-resistant.

Pink Bourbon and Chiroso - These are both Ethiopian landraces that, almost exactly like Gesha, were brought from Ethiopia to other parts of the world, where they produce excellent cup quality. The exact details of the path that these varieties took to reach their current growing locations is not clear. Chiroso is primarily grown in the Antioquia region of Colombia. Pink Bourbon is also being planted more and more in Colombia due to the exceptional cup quality.

For more detail on these varieties, and many more, see World Coffee Research’s arabica variety catalog.