Is Catimor Coffee Arabica? Is Catimor Coffee Good? Catimor Coffee Price List

The Coffee Industry's Response to Rust Disease

As is well known, in the 1970s coffee cultivation faced the impact of rust disease, and the global coffee industry hit a harsh winter. That was true only for Arabica growers; for Robusta, it was merely the beginning of spring. Robusta was a great invention: through hybridization with medium and small-grain varieties, it gained immunity to rust in hot, humid environments without needing a specific growing altitude. Its yield was also more than double that of Arabica, making farmers more willing to plant the higher-return Robusta.

The Evolution of Coffee Preferences

If the coffee industry had stopped there, with everyone drinking instant coffee and no development of specialty coffee, perhaps that would have been the best ending to the story. But things changed -- coffee began to be appreciated for its flavor. Robusta's quality and taste differ greatly from Arabica, and the Robusta hybrids promoted in emerging growing regions to fight rust already represented a significant share of production. So people found a solution: treating Arabica-Robusta hybrids as equivalent to Arabica.

The Chinese Coffee Industry's Example

A nearby example illustrates this rather absurd assumption. Traditionally we point to Arabica Typica in Binchuan Zhugula as the starting point of Chinese coffee. But the true starting point of the modern Chinese coffee industry was actually planting Catimor beans for Nestle to earn foreign exchange. When the specialty coffee industry emerged, all we had were medium-to-small grain hybrid varieties, with no large-scale cultivation of small-grain varieties. As a result, Yunnan's Catimor beans, which carry Robusta genes, were treated equally as "Yunnan small-grain coffee."

Market Acceptance and Business Reality

Historical experience tells us this approach works and is widely accepted by the market. Every coffee season, many coffee professionals rush to the mountains of Yunnan, indiscriminately gathering Catimor beans to bring to the cities for customers to taste seriously. Some supposedly official coffee trading centers recommend all specialty beans -- yes, all uniformly Catimor -- and rate them. Notably, these activities involve practitioners with extensive specialty coffee experience as well as coffee evaluators. Although they know perfectly well what specialty coffee is, that does not prevent them from staging the emperor's new clothes. Why does reality look like this? There is only one answer -- this is perhaps just everyone's business.

The Future of Coffee Varieties

For those in the industry and for coffee lovers, whether one is drinking a pure 100% Arabica specialty coffee is not important, nor is it especially important whether Robusta can become a branch of specialty coffee. In the future, the market may well accept Robusta as a specialty bean.

What Coffee Enthusiasts Should Know

What matters is that those of us who love coffee need to understand:

• What is Arabica?
• What is Robusta?
• What is single-origin coffee?

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you want to taste what a clean, pure Arabica really is, FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Gudingding is a fine benchmark. It is an Ethiopian G1 washed coffee from the Gudingding cooperative, showing elegant white florals, citrus, orange and green tea -- a clean, transparent cup that makes the case for Arabica's quality.

For a more dramatic expression of pure Arabica, try FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Red Label Geisha. It comes from the renowned Esmeralda estate in Boquete, Chiriqi province, where fertile volcanic soil, ancient forest and year-round mist create ideal growing conditions. Expect lush, elegant florals, citrus and peach, rich composite fruit acidity, a creamy texture and an oolong-tea sweet finish.