Arabica vs Robusta: Which is Superior? Understanding the Differences Between Arabica and Robusta Coffee

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The Endangered Arabica

Many of you may have seen a news story: Arabica is on the brink of extinction. The gist of the report is that due to climate change, wild Arabica will become extinct in the wild by 2080, meaning people will no longer have delicious coffee to drink!

So the question arises: why Arabica and not Robusta? Arabica is more delicious, and 70% of coffee traded globally as a commodity is Arabica. It should be a more advanced and superior variety with a wider cultivation range, so why is it facing extinction first?

This requires a biological analysis of Arabica and Robusta, which is exactly what we're exploring today—who is truly more advanced?

Growing Conditions

First, let's look at the growing conditions of these two varieties. Although both Arabica and Robusta grow within the coffee belt between 45° north and south latitude, we often say that Arabica is cultivated at altitudes above 800 meters. Arabica has high requirements for growing conditions and weak resistance to pests and diseases. Robusta is grown at altitudes below 800 meters and has extremely strong adaptability with robust resistance to pests and diseases.

This raises two questions: resistance to pests and diseases, and adaptability to the environment.

Resistance to Pests and Diseases

What is resistance to pests and diseases? Simply put, it's the ability not to be completely eaten! Think about it: if you were coffee leaf rust fungus or an insect that eats coffee beans, would you prefer warm and humid or cold and dry conditions? Of course, the former! Relatively speaking, if I were a coffee tree growing in a warm, humid environment and wanted to continuously reproduce, I would need to evolve the ability to resist diseases and pests. One such ability is caffeine. For humans, caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world, but in nature, it's a natural insecticide that can paralyze insects that consume caffeine-containing plants.

Now you understand why Robusta's caffeine content is several times higher than Arabica's. Survival of the fittest through natural selection—this is precisely the core idea of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species."

Environmental Adaptability

Regarding environmental adaptation, the previous point discusses adaptability to external threats, while other adaptations include temperature and humidity tolerance, survival during sudden environmental changes (mainly temperature fluctuations), drought and flood disasters, wind damage, and more. Let's continue our discussion~

Altitude is the dividing line between growing areas for Arabica and Robusta beans. Temperature naturally increases as altitude decreases. So within our current global coffee belt, are there more high-altitude or low-altitude regions? And what factors is the 2080 prediction of Arabica's extinction based on? Temperature. For species, only those adapted to their growing environment can reproduce. From this perspective, Robusta is the better survivor.

Genetic Perspective

When it comes to adapting to environmental changes and other disasters, we must approach from a genetic perspective. We generally know that Arabica has 44 chromosomes while Robusta has 22; Arabica is self-pollinating while Robusta is cross-pollinating.

More chromosomes mean higher genetic complexity, perhaps making it more advanced, but our focus is on pollination—that is, the genetic inheritance process.

Under normal circumstances, cross-pollinated plants have higher quality—offspring produced through cross-pollination possess genetic traits from both parent plants, potentially generating new characteristics that help them survive in changing environments. In reality, Arabica, especially past American Arabica varieties, are quite fragile, which can be traced back to their origins. The first coffee tree rooted in the American continent came from the Netherlands. Due to Arabica's self-pollinating characteristic, genes become increasingly homogeneous during continuous reproduction (without involvement of foreign genes). Therefore, if certain diseases or disasters occur, coffee plants with the same genes could be completely wiped out! This is why scientists are now trying various methods to hybridize Arabica to increase genetic diversity or return to coffee's birthplace, Ethiopia—this natural coffee gene bank—to seek solutions.

Catuai and Catimor are two prominent examples.

Catuai is a hybrid of Mundo Novo and Caturra (intraspecific hybrid). It inherits Caturra's advantage of short plant height, addressing Mundo Novo's shortcomings; it also compensates for Arabica's fragile fruit characteristic. The fruit sets firmly and doesn't easily drop when blown by strong winds.

Catimor is a hybrid of Caturra and Timor (interspecific hybrid). It has characteristics of high yield and good disease resistance, but its flavor is relatively bland.

Conversely, pure Robusta varieties can better maintain genetic diversity through their natural cross-pollination, and genetic mutations occurring during the inheritance process are also more easily preserved and spread. For population reproduction, this is clearly superior.

Cultivation and Human Choice

Regarding cultivation issues, the ecosystem at higher altitudes is more fragile (less biodiversity), so growers of premium coffee must plant various vegetation around coffee trees, protect forests and animals, use organic fertilizers, etc., to ensure the ecosystem isn't damaged. Otherwise, Arabica coffee becomes even more difficult to survive. As for Robusta, it can survive even with rougher cultivation conditions, making it more environmentally adapted.

Now let's discuss human choice. Those who say Arabica is superior to Robusta are actually referring to flavor superiority. Humans initially consumed coffee beans because of their stimulating effects—an expression of biological utilization of nature. Later, people chose to cultivate Arabica more because of its delicious taste. However, setting aside flavor and looking at biological utilization, Robusta might dominate, as it contains more extractable caffeine. Then let's consider environmental value: a study investigating coffee cultivation conditions in India found that 75% of Arabica coffee farmers use pesticides, while only 19% of Robusta growers do (after all, Robusta has its own insecticide). For birds and other animals, Robusta might be more environmentally friendly and provide better protection for surrounding biodiversity. Of course, in forest habitats with high bird diversity, researchers also discovered higher diversity of other species, such as mammals, amphibians, and trees, some of which are very rare species. This indicates that mountain coffee plantations haven't caused serious harm to bird and other biological diversity.

Conclusion

In summary, biologically speaking, Robusta coffee actually possesses superior survival habits, while economically, Arabica coffee has a slight advantage. As for historical and cultural value, Arabica coffee's significance is even more prominent—many great works of art, love stories, and even revolutions that changed a nation's destiny originated from coffeehouses. Coffee brings people infinite inspiration and motivation, and what they're drinking is, of course, delicious Arabica coffee.

Regarding who is more advanced between Arabica and Robusta, what are your thoughts? You're welcome to share with us~

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