What are the Characteristics, Flavor, and Taste Profile of Typica Coffee? Are Typica Coffee Beans Bitter?

Typica, recognized as an ancient and excellent coffee variety in the coffee world, has given rise to many famous coffee beans we're familiar with, such as Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, Sumatran Mandheling Coffee, and Hawaiian Kona Coffee. So what characteristics does this "old variety" Typica possess?

Characteristics of Typica Variety Coffee

Typica, with its mellow aroma, remains a high-quality coffee variety cultivated worldwide today, with Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee being the most renowned. Producing Typica coffee beans with elegant and pure flavors is no simple task—every step from natural terroir conditions, plant management, fruit harvesting, to post-processing must be fully guaranteed for the coffee beans to develop positive flavors and textures. This means producing high-quality Typica requires more investment in labor costs and technical expertise, which explains why Blue Mountain Coffee and Kona Coffee are so precious.

The most distinctive characteristic of the Typica variety is that its top leaves display a reddish-bronze color, earning it the name "Red Top Coffee." Typica trees have a conical shape with slightly inclined branches, where lateral branches form 50-70° angles with the vertical stem. Its trunk is slender and branches are thin. Due to its height and long-branch characteristics, sufficient spacing must be maintained between Typica plants when cultivating them. There's a Typica tree planted next to FrontStreet Coffee's Dongshankou store—feel free to take note next time you visit.

Typica coffee beans are relatively large, elongated, and pointed at both ends, somewhat egg-shaped. After roasting, they often exhibit citrus acidity with unnoticeable bitterness and carry a sweet aftertaste. Overall, they have high clarity and are praised by many for their elegant and clean flavor characteristics.

However, Typica has very poor disease resistance, struggling against common diseases like leaf rust and coffee berry disease, and its yield is extremely scarce. Leaf rust is the most severe plant disease, first appearing in the Lake Victoria coffee growing region of East Africa in 1861. In 1970, leaf rust broke out in Bahia, Brazil, and since then, all coffee producing regions worldwide have gradually discovered cases of leaf rust. Coffee trees infected with leaf rust are equivalent to having an incurable disease, eventually withering and even dying. As an economic crop, Typica's low yield and susceptibility to disease make it difficult to achieve profitability, leading many growers to abandon it in favor of other varieties with better disease resistance.

On FrontStreet Coffee's regular bean menu, there are three Typica varieties: Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 Coffee Beans, FrontStreet Coffee 2013 Natural Process Typica Coffee Beans, and Papua New Guinea Bird of Paradise Coffee Beans. Grown in different terroir conditions and processed using different methods, Typica also exhibits different flavors and textures.

Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 Coffee Beans

The high quality of Blue Mountain Coffee is naturally inseparable from its growing environment advantages. The Blue Mountain Range is surrounded by Caribbean Sea waters, featuring a unique island-type tropical rainforest microclimate. During rainy seasons, rainfall is concentrated with good drainage. Volcanic ash from active volcanoes enriches the soil with nutrients, so coffee trees don't require excessive irrigation and fertilization. With abundant year-round sunshine, surrounded by thin mist, the cool and comfortable high-altitude growing area is very suitable for various crops. Locals typically plant coffee trees alongside banana trees on the slopes of Blue Mountain.

The CIB (Coffee Industry Board) has designated an area of approximately 6,000 hectares in the Blue Mountain Range, strictly stipulating that only Typica coffee produced in this region can be called "Blue Mountain Coffee." According to the CIB's designated area, Blue Mountain coffee is grown at altitudes between 910-1700 meters. The high altitude combined with perfect climate characteristics allows coffee fruits to fully absorb essences and transform into various aromatic substances. The higher the altitude, the more prominent Typica's flavor expression becomes.

However, Typica's poor disease resistance makes it highly susceptible to infection, coupled with low fruit yield per plant, requiring more intensive human care. Additionally, the high-altitude terrain of Blue Mountain is uneven, making management and harvesting very difficult. This requires highly skilled harvesting personnel, further affecting yield. In recent years, less than 15% of coffee beans produced in Jamaica (about 900 tons) can carry the Blue Mountain Coffee label. After harvesting, coffee cherries are immediately transported to processing plants for washing, de-pulping, and drying.

When FrontStreet Coffee receives Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 green coffee beans, they are uniform, full, and consistently sized with an overall translucent blue-green color. FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-dark roasting to maximize the presentation of Blue Mountain's chocolate and nutty aromas while preserving soft acidity and sweetness, creating an overall balanced texture. Immediately after fresh roasting, FrontStreet Coffee conducted cupping: dry fragrance reveals nuts, melon, and chocolate; after adding hot water, notes of oolong tea, caramel, honey, and dark chocolate emerge. The taste is rich dark chocolate, roasted hazelnuts, cream, and brown sugar, with clean and clear flavors, mellow texture, and lasting aroma.

Yunnan Natural Process Typica Coffee Beans

Originally, coffee varieties planted in Yunnan were the ancient Typica and Bourbon. Later, Yunnan coffee suffered from global leaf rust damage, causing large-scale death of coffee trees and significantly reducing cultivation area. With support from various foreign companies, high-yield, disease-resistant Catimor was introduced. This established Catimor's position as a replacement for the ancient Typica trees, becoming the main variety of Yunnan coffee today. Due to low yield and disease susceptibility of Typica coffee beans, coupled with high management costs, growers need more exploration time, which is why most Yunnan coffee farmers are unwilling to plant it.

Yunnan's Lincang region is influenced by Indian Ocean warm-humid air currents and southwest monsoons, with unclear seasonal distinctions but distinct dry and rainy seasons. It has abundant rainfall, long sunshine hours, short frost periods, and some areas are frost-free year-round. The obvious three-dimensional climate makes it very suitable for Arabica coffee cultivation, so FrontStreet Coffee specifically selected the most original Typica. However, the precious Typica is also notorious for low yield and poor resistance, so FrontStreet Coffee invested considerable effort in cultivation management. After 5-6 years of cultivation, FrontStreet Coffee finally harvested the first batch in 2020, produced using natural drying processing, and named it "FrontStreet Coffee 2013."

At FrontStreet Coffee, you can only find Yunnan coffee beans processed by two methods: washed and natural. For this Typica coffee, FrontStreet Coffee chose natural processing. Natural processing doesn't require excessive equipment—mainly continuous even drying under clear sunny weather. Coffee cherries must be processed immediately after harvesting, starting with sorting. Floatation is one common sorting method. After sorting, coffee fruits are sun-dried. FrontStreet Coffee arranges personnel to turn them regularly to avoid uneven heating and over-fermentation. When coffee cherries dehydrate from bright red to dark purple and reach target moisture content, they can be sent for hulling and roasting. Natural-processed Typica exhibits fuller fermentation flavors than washed processing, with prominent sweetness and notes of caramel, berries, and black tea.

Papua New Guinea Bird of Paradise Coffee Beans

Papua New Guinea, located in Oceania, neighbors the famous coffee-producing region of Indonesia. In 1920, Papua imported Typica coffee seeds from Jamaica's Blue Mountain region, officially beginning commercial cultivation. Here sits the circum-Pacific volcanic belt, featuring volcanic geology with rich, fertile volcanic soil, high-altitude mountain climate, and low-altitude tropical rainforest climate, creating an excellent environment for nurturing fine coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's Bird of Paradise coffee beans are produced by the SIGRI Bird of Paradise Estate using washed processing, named after Papua's national bird. The Bird of Paradise Estate is located in the Waghi Valley of the Western Highlands, featuring volcanic soil rich in minerals, cool climate, fertile soil, and abundant rainfall. All coffee in the estate is grown using organic fertilization. High-standard cultivation and production standards give Typica coffee here a cleaner profile. Bird of Paradise is acclaimed as "Little Blue Mountain" due to its soft, low-acidity texture and balanced flavors.

Through cupping comparison, FrontStreet Coffee found that Bird of Paradise coffee beans somewhat resemble Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee's balanced sweet, sour, and bitter taste, with hints of spice. The sweet aftertaste reminds one of sugarcane, with very noticeable baked bread and nut flavors.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on WeChat (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473