COFFEEA ARABICA AND ITS VARIETALS

We are sure you already know about Arabica. Aromatical coffee that everyone likes to have in their cup. But did you know that Arabica has many varietals? You can find different varietals in our coffee offer. Todays blog is all about them in order to bring coffee indentity even closer to you.

ARABICA vs. ROBUSTA

In the past we only knew about Arabica and Robusta coffee. Arabica was always known as more aromatic coffee, but harder to cultivate. Robusta is much more resistant to extreme conditions but its taste is much less complex, even unpleasant. Today we usually see Robusta in instant coffee. Do you know that feeling, after drinking coffee from some machine and you get drenched in sweat and end up with an upset stomach? Say thanks to Robusta. Arabica is much nicer to our organism than Robusta, which is one of the reasons we use only Arabicas in our coffee roastery.

ARABICA AND ITS VARIETALS

Arabica is that aromatic coffee that we all like to drink. But did you know that it has many varietals and each of them has its own properties? They differ in colour of a coffee cherry, size, taste, location, yield and much more. Coffee originates from Ethiopia and was first taken to Middle east-Jemen. With a little help of european colonisation, it started to spread troughout the world. Coffee got all the way to India and Indonesia in East and later they introduced it to other african countries and Latin America in the West. Coffee developed differently in every single teritory and its natural mutation began. Later, we started to make hybrids, crossbreeds and selections.
Scientific classification->> Kingdom: Plantae – Clade: Tracheophytes – Class: Magnoliopsida – Order: Gentianales – Family: Rubiaceae – Genus: Coffea –Species: Coffea Arabica – Varietals: Bourbon, Typica, Caturra, Catuai,…

BOURBON AND TYPICA

Today we know around 100 varietals of Arabica.. The number keeps growing since coffee still needs a lot of research. The most known varietals are Bourbon and Typica. Bourbon is known for its fruity acidity and acidity that resembles wine. We can mostly find it in Brazil and Latin America. Yield is good, coffee beans are round in shape. Typica is known for sweet acidity and maleinic acidity that we can find in apple or pear. We find Typica in all countries of Latin America and Indonesia. Its coffee beans are elongated, yield is smaller than with Bourbon varietal. Quality of cup is excellent.

CATURRA AND CATUAI

Caturra is a natural mutation of Bourbon. It has nice citrus notes. We can find it mostly in Brazil and Colombia. Caturra differs from Bourbon in size of the plant, it’s smaller but yield size is bigger. Caturra is pest resistant and therefore very popular to plant in coffee farms. Catuai is a cross between Caturra and Mundo Novo. It has a pleasant sweet taste. It’s very resistant and they love to plant it in locations with extreme weather.

SL28 AND SL34

We often meet these two in kenyan coffee. SL28 is varietal with roots in Bourbon. It was brought from Tanzania, where it developed in such way that it was drought resistant. SL28 is famous for its bright acidity, intensive citrus flavours and sweetness. Unfortunately it’s not resistant to pests and coffee rust, but yield is nice. SL34 is an excellent alternative to SL28, but the origin is kinda shady. Its complex citrus flavour, big body and sweetness made this varietal quit desirable in coffee world. It’s pest resistant and yield is fine.

HEIRLOOM

One of the most interesting varietals that we can find in Ethiopian coffee is Heirloom. We use this name for all authentic wild coffee plants in Ethiopia. There is aprox. 10.000 of them and they still need to be researched. When you order coffee from Ethiopia, you never know what you’ll get. We could say it’s a bag of surprise. Every village in Ethiopia has its own coffee tree varietal and they all differ in taste, apperance, size, resistence and yield.

So these are some of the most commonly seen varietals in coffee scene today. Every year we get a few new varietals, worth trying. Don’t be afraid to taste the unknown, maybe the new coffee in the scene will become your favourite.

Check out our coffee offer and different varietals content HERE.

Are you interested in scientific approach to coffee? Visit this page-> SCA