The Arabica Family Tree - Which Coffee Beans Belong to the Arabica Variety

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What kind of seeds am I buying?

I believe many friends, and even peers, have had these experiences when purchasing green or roasted coffee beans - you will see information about the coffee tree species.

When I saw a coffee bean from Kenya, I also wondered: what exactly are SL28 and SL34? (Hey, don't start driving without saying a word)

Actually, these are two tree species that evolved from Bourbon gene mutations and are national treasures of Kenyan coffee. What's the deal with tree species? What types are there? I'll reveal this later.

What happened to this tree, it looks so impressive... Yes, this is the relationship between various tree species in the Rubiaceae - Coffee family. The relationship diagrams of distant relatives like seven aunts and eight uncles are simply weak in comparison.

The Battle of Tree Species: Is Your Brother More Powerful?

Drink good beans directly? Who knows what species you're drinking! Speaking of tree species, one could really write a TV drama script.

A fierce and bloody struggle, empires competing for highlands, brothers turning against each other with knives, incestuous love within families - all of this in "The Storm of the Arabica Empire."

More than a thousand years ago, on the Ethiopian highlands, a pioneer in the coffee tree world demonstrated its unparalleled power to humans through a group of sheep, officially beginning its journey of world conquest.

Among them was a powerful tribe - Arabica. Although prone to various "noble diseases," it established a vast empire occupying 70-80% of the coffee world's territory through its excellent lineage in flavor, acidity, and mouthfeel during its conquests.

Meanwhile, the Robusta (Coffea robusta linden) tribe, with its tenacious vitality, occupying only 20-30% of global territory, could hardly compare, let alone the declining Liberica (Coffea liberica) tribe.

In the Empire Established by Arabica

Three major clans - Ethiopian native species, Typica, and Bourbon - form a tripartite confrontation.

Typica

As the eldest brother, Typica has a relatively weak constitution and has appeared less frequently in recent years, with several outstanding sons maintaining its territory. Below are some common varieties.

For example, Maragogype, three times larger than regular Arabica, is famous for its world-record size.

Blue Mountain, famous for Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, Hawaiian Kona, and Sumatran Typica are all quite well-known.

Bourbon

The Bourbon clan has performed remarkably well. The Mocha round-bean immigrant became famous after moving to Bourbon Island. Several of its most outstanding branches have many well-known and famous varieties. These include Caturra, Pacas, Yellow Bourbon, Pacamara (extremely low caffeine content, unique flavor, extremely rare), Vilasachi, and others.

Below are some common varieties.

Let's talk about Yellow Bourbon - generally, coffee cherries turn red when ripe, but Yellow Bourbon is yellow. Interesting, right? It looks like the southern fruit wampee.

Here's a little gossip that can't be verified: it's said that Bourbon is Typica's illegitimate child. (Hmm, there's something strange about this.)

Ethiopian Landrace

Ethiopian native species have a rather complex system and are an ancient organization that's difficult to separate. For example, when you buy Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, the tree species is usually labeled as "Heirloom."

The most outstanding descendant is undoubtedly Geisha - a wandering prince who, after many years and travels through various places, finally made a name for itself in Panama. Since then, it has been unstoppable, looking down on all others with its elegant demeanor.

Actually, when it comes to native species, Java, Kaffa, and Gimma beans are also included. Below are common varieties.

Typica × Bourbon × Robusta Beans All Came?

Next is the most scandalous gossip part of the coffee world.

First, the relatively pure ones.

For example, Pacamara, mentioned at the beginning, is a hybrid of Pacas and Maragogype (i.e., Elephant Bean). If you don't understand, don't worry - we'll use a diagram.

The Elephant Bean (Maragogype) from the Typica family and Caturra from the Bourbon family gave birth to Maracaturra.

This next family is more complicated...

Sumatran Typica from the Typica clan and a son of Bourbon gave birth to Mundo Novo.

Mundo Novo later hybridized with Caturra from the Bourbon family to create Catuai.

Catuai then had Maracatu with Elephant Bean (Maragogype) from the Typica family...

Yes, it's just one character different from that pure child above... So the question arises again: is Typica the grandfather of Maracatu, or the grandfather's grandfather??????

All of the above are hybrid (chaotic) pairings (incestuous) within Arabica. What about × Robusta beans? There are also such examples.

Caturra from the Bourbon family (yes, Caturra the rogue again) and Timor, the Cinderella from the poor Robusta family, gave birth to Catimor. Actually, Timor is also a hybrid of some Arabica and some Robusta... See details in the diagram.

Disease resistance improved, yield increased, but Catimor failed to inherit its father's noble bloodline and fully learned its mother's shortcomings - lacking elegance. Later, it was hoped that offspring could be obtained through self-pollination that combined the advantages of both parents, but this was not very successful. So we can see that Catimor has many descendant branches, including the famous Costa Rica 95, Catimor, Colombia, and Colombia's new descendant Castillo.

Finally, there's Rume Sudan from native species × Timor from Robusta, whose descendant is called Ruiru 11, very common in Kenya.

Finally, let me organize a complete tree species relationship diagram for everyone.

Click on the larger image for more exciting (head-spinning) content.

The editor is dizzy, please drop some essential oil.

Written at the End

Actually, it's enough for everyone to be familiar with one or two parts of the above content, because the major clans have begun breaking boundaries, hoping to obtain offspring with comprehensive advantages through intermarriage. Although the status of several currently outstanding princes seems unshakable, it's uncertain that hybrids comparable to them won't appear in the future. At that time, there will likely be a very long string...

Interestingly enough. Let me talk about an old news story from the coffee world last year.

As a branch of Catimor, Castillo has three main characteristics: high yield, strong disease resistance, and rich flavor. It has 7 forms and can adapt to complex soil and water environments.

Starting in 2014, SCAA has been collaborating with the Colombian government to organize a cup quality competition between Castillo and Caturra, a direct Bourbon variant. The competition results were also published on the SCAA official website in April 2015.

Below are the 3-round average scores of Castillo vs. Caturra. Castillo won the first round of blind tasting, and although it lost the next two rounds, the scores were almost neck and neck. It's not difficult to see from the table that Castillo's average scores over 3 rounds were significantly better than Caturra's. Caturra's low scores in all 3 rounds were far below Castillo's, revealing the instability of pure varieties.

And most frighteningly, Castillo's yield is much higher than Caturra's.

Foreign websites even published headlines like:

Castillo vs. Caturra ≠ Quantity vs. Quality

This means Castillo doesn't just win in terms of quantity. Its quality can also compete with Caturra.

Interested friends can check out the competition process and reports on the SCAA official website.

This year, the World Coffee Research organization, which focuses on origin and coffee breeding, made a bold statement - within 10 years, we will cultivate a new coffee tree variety - one that has the excellent flavor of Caturra (or even Geisha) while also having the high yield of Costa Rica 95.

Let's look forward to it.

To avoid redundancy in the introduction of tree species, this article has omitted specific flavor descriptions and regional distribution information.

Arabica Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473