arabica

BECOME A SOMMELIER OF COFFEE VARIETALS

As we know from this previous article, Coffea arabica began gifting us its delicious berries fairly recently in the historical timeline. Today, especially with craft roasters, the variety of coffee has become a great selling point following a path similar to the wine market.

At the World Barista Championship competition, you will see each barista blending Coffea arabica varieties to brew their rendition of the perfect cup of coffee. The language of the competitors and the language used in the premium coffee roasting world is nearly identical to the language used by vintners.

Nearly every wine grape from Chardonnay to Merlot is part of the species Vitis vinifera and nearly every premium coffee from Gesha to Sudan Rume is part of the species Coffea arabica. This will be a quick guide to common coffee varieties and their tasting notes.

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Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

Before we begin, there is some important lingo to memorize. A species is a group of organisms sharing a similar genetic code. It is tricky to define but in our case, Coffea arabica is the species we will focus on. There are likely thousands of unique species of coffee hiding in the Ethiopian jungle but C. canephora, C. liberica, and C. eugenoides are three other coffee species being cultivated today.

A variety is the next classification we will discuss throughout the article. Pinot Gris is to wine as Typica is to coffee. A variety has minor changes in characteristics such as bean size, plant size, disease resistance, quality of coffee beans, etc. As mentioned in “Breeding a better future for C. arabica”, almost all of the coffee varieties being cultivated around the world today are descended from two-parent varieties: Typica and Bourbon.

Bourbon

This is a very good cup of coffee with an average-sized round bean. The flavor notes are deep buttery chocolate with light fruity overtones. French missionaries smuggled this bean from Yemen in the 1700’s and brought it to the island of Bourbon where it gets its name. The variety slowly spread throughout Africa and eventually made its way to Brazil where it spread to Central America. It is still cultivated today in Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, and Guatemala even though the plant is susceptible to a number of diseases. Bourbon was crossed with old Ethiopian landrace varieties and old Bourbon varieties bred in India so you will find a number of relatives of Bourbon being cultivated today. Some of these varieties include Caturra, Catuai, Mundo Novo, among others.

Typica

Typica beans produce great coffee and many splendid varieties stem from this group. The bean itself is slightly more elongated than Bourbon beans and the flavor notes are lemony citrus, floral, with a sweet aftertaste.

The history of Typica is well-documented and the progeny of this variety are well-known such as the Kona and Jamaican Blue Mountain varieties. The Typica variety began in India in the 1700s from seeds smuggled from Yemen. Through many travels and genetic bottlenecks, Typica became one of the most popular varieties cultivated in Central and South America. A common trait we see among both Typica and Bourbon is light yield from the plants, high susceptibility to disease, but the beans taste incredible.

Geisha or Gesha

This is an incredible cup of coffee. This bean was harvested from landraces found in Ethiopia in the 1930s and remained in the bureaucratic limbo of research stations until it was released in Panama in the 1960s.

Farmers thought the branches were too brittle for commercial operations so Geisha was a popular choice among farmers. That is until 2005 when it performed very well in the “Best of Panama” contest fetching over $20/pound at auction.

There are a number of coffee plants being called “Gesha” but this true Gesha is an Ethiopian landrace plant with flavor notes of jasmine, peach, and other floral qualities. It is regarded as one of the best coffee varietals.

Caturra

This is one of the most economically important varieties of coffee cultivated in Central America and it arose as a mutated individual found in a Bourbon variety plantation. Caturra was a dwarfed Bourbon but still produced the same amount of beans which is great news for coffee farmers. Now they could grow double the plants resulting in double yield on the same plot of land. Today, coffee varieties are compared to this “benchmark” variety. It is one of the most important commercial Arabica varieties. The flavor notes are similar to Bourbon.

Java

A low acidity coffee with chocolatey, earthy notes with a heavier body. Java was introduced to Java from Ethiopia in the 1800s by the Dutch.

The big revelation found with Java is that it is resistant to a number of coffee berry diseases and requires very few inputs from the farmer. Many small scale farms and organic operations choose Java for these qualities and you can find it being grown in Africa, Indonesia,  and Central America.

Sudan Rume

Cherry, honeysuckle, and berry jam are the tasting notes associated with this popular premium coffee varietal. Bred in Sudan from an Ethiopian Bourbon relative, this plant can be best summarized by the saying “quality over quantity”.

This plant has a very low yield making it an unsavory candidate for commercial farming but the resulting beans make exceptional coffee.

These are the varietals you are most likely to see on the labels of high quality, variety focused bags of coffee. By blending the beans of these varieties, expert baristas are able to take the chocolatey notes of a bourbon and mix it with the fruity notes of a Sudan Rume.

The world is your oyster when it comes to blending coffee. The premium coffee roasters, however, put much more of a focus on how the beans are farmed and processed. There are many ways to process a coffee bean once it is harvested and many coffee cultures around the world have their signature touch.

One thing is clear in the premium coffee industry. The quality of the beans and the method of agriculture is much more important than fetching the cheapest price from commercial growers. Great soil and a focus on flavor rather than yield are how chefs are motivated in the farm to table movement and this concept is seen with the best coffee producers around the globe.

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