Bourbon Varieties: Catuai, Catuai, Mundo Novo and Bourbon as Brazil's Four Major Varietals

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FrontStreet Coffee - An Introduction to the Catuai Variety

Catuai green beans are relatively soft, with a sweet taste and minimal acidity or astringency--as if everything scored a mere 65 points. This is a variety Brazil has pushed hard, though it has yet to achieve major success.

Catuai is an Arabica hybrid, a cross of Mundo Novo and Caturra. It has good resistance to natural challenges, particularly wind and rain. It inherits Caturra's short plant height, fixing Mundo Novo's main shortcoming, and its firm cherries resist dropping in strong winds, compensating for the fragile nature of Arabica fruit. The regret is that its overall flavor is more one-dimensional than Caturra's, and less complex and less full-bodied than Mundo Novo's. Its productive lifespan is also only about ten years, another relative weakness.

Catuai comes in red- and yellow-fruit forms. Statistically, red Catuai wins awards more frequently. Catuai, Caturra, Mundo Novo, and Bourbon are considered Brazil's four main varieties.

The two forms--red Catuai Vermelho and yellow Catuai Amarelo--have both been evaluated extensively, but no yellow-fruit lot has yet been found to taste better than the red. In fact, some cuppers have found that while yellow-fruit coffee may show good acidity, its cleanness falls short of the red. Statistically, red Catuai wins awards more often.

Because Caturra yields heavily and resists pests and diseases but lacks fine flavor, Catuai was developed from it to improve those taste shortcomings--though it seems to have landed on being too balanced.

FrontStreet Coffee - Catuai

Common Coffee Cultivation Varieties

Typica

Bourbon

Genetic Mutations:

Kenya [SL28] and [SL34] (Bourbon lineage)

Geisha

Bourbon Amarello (Yellow Bourbon)

Caturra

Pacas

Villa Sarchi

Maragogype (Elephant Bean)

Arabica Intraspecific Hybrids

Mundo Novo

Catuai

Pacamara

Kent

Arabica and Robusta Interspecific Hybrids

Timor

Catimor

Icatu

Ruiru 11

Chandragiri

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, grows coffee of every style, and its beans carry a moderate acidity with an excellent balance of sweetness, bitterness, and body--ideal for medium roasting that unlocks nutty aromatics and a mellow, faintly tart cup, whether as a single origin or in a blend.

To taste the classic Brazilian profile, buy FrontStreet's semi-washed Cerrado Red Bourbon: a renowned single origin from a region famous for quality, roasted medium to show rich creamed-peanut, toast, caramel, and hazelnut aromas with a rounded mouthfeel--no sourness, just a light bitter note. It works as pour-over and equally through a moka pot, espresso SOE, siphon, or French press.

For a rarer expression, FrontStreet's Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon--the yellow-fruited mutation of Red Bourbon from Mogiana's fertile red volcanic soil--offers a cleaner fruit character with sugarcane sweetness plus fruit and chocolate notes through pour-over, moka pot, or home espresso machine. Brazil's low acidity also anchors FrontStreet's espresso lineup: the crema-rich Classic Blend, nutty Premium Blend, balanced Black Cocoa Blend, and cafe-oriented Commercial Blend all use Brazilian beans for chocolate-cream aromatics and a stable, even extraction.

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