What is the Heirloom Coffee Variety? An Introduction to the Characteristics of Ethiopian Landrace Coffee Varieties

When tasting Ethiopian coffee, the delightful flavors of citrus and floral notes often compel you to examine the origin information of Ethiopian coffee beans. In the variety column, you'll find "Heirloom" listed. What exactly is this coffee variety? FrontStreet Coffee today will explore the coffee varieties of Ethiopia.

What Does "Heirloom" Mean?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Heirloom" is defined as "a valuable possession of several generations," meaning "family treasure." Similarly, in the coffee world, this term is widely used to refer to old varieties of Arabica coffee plants that have existed for some time. In Chinese, it's commonly translated as "当地原生种" (local native varieties).

However, particularly in Ethiopia, the term "当地原生种" (local native varieties) typically refers to the country's native varieties, many of which are still discovered in the wild today. It's estimated that Ethiopia currently has approximately 10,000 to 15,000 heirloom varieties, most of which have not yet undergone formal genetic identification.

While many heirloom varieties began as wild plants, they were later brought to various specialty coffee farms across the country, where they are cultivated, harvested, and processed.

The term "Ethiopian native varieties (Heirloom)" describes ancient varieties of plants cultivated for consumption. Some say a variety must be over 100 years old to be classified as an heirloom, while others require 50 years. Some classify heirloom plants from before 1945, around the time hybrid varieties were introduced, or from 1951 when hybrids became more common.

Local native varieties are typically divided into two categories: JARC varieties and regional landraces. JARC varieties are those developed and studied by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (with desirable characteristics such as higher disease resistance or yield). However, regional landraces are coffee trees that grow entirely in the wild.

In Ethiopia, there's also a "semi-forest system" where "larger forest areas (usually) are owned by private groups."

The biggest challenge with local native varieties is that most are in wild states, making it difficult for farmers to identify and separate varieties in the wild. On farms, pickers and producers can better separate each variety. Among Ethiopia's thousands of different heirloom varieties (whether identified or not), there are many different characteristics, including yield, cup quality, flavor, and disease resistance.

Therefore, when you see significant differences in the size and appearance of Ethiopian coffee beans, it doesn't represent low quality. Instead, it indicates that there are actually many different varieties of coffee beans mixed together, making size variations quite normal. Additionally, the flavor variation of Ethiopian beans from year to year tends to be greater than in other producing countries. The most obvious example is FrontStreet Coffee's Sidamo Natural Flower Queen coffee beans. The 2017 Flower Queen was famous for its strawberry flavor, but even from the same region, subsequent Flower Queen coffee beans showed progressively weaker strawberry notes until the 2021 Flower Queen 5.0, whose flavor profile had become quite distant from that of the 2017 Flower Queen.

Ethiopian authorities have recognized this issue, realizing that using the term "Heirloom" indefinitely is not a long-term solution. However, separating and classifying coffee varieties one by one from the coffee forests is also impractical. Consequently, Ethiopian exported coffee beans are gradually using the term "Landrace" as a replacement.

Landrace means local varieties, referring to plants with historical origins, unique characteristics, genetic diversity, and the ability to adapt to local conditions while cooperating well with farmers' field management. For example, Yirgacheffe consists of indistinguishable varieties that have developed distinctive flavors after adapting to the geographical environment. Local people are accustomed to calling the coffee varieties in the Yirgacheffe area "Kurume." Similarly, there are regional varieties like Dega and Walisho in Sidamo.

Of course, besides these geographically-named varieties, Ethiopia also screens and researches coffee varieties. For example, varieties frequently appearing in recent green bean competitions like 74110, 74112, 74158... These "number" varieties are actually those selected and bred by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center, also known as JARC varieties. The first two digits of these five-digit numbers represent the year when samples were collected for classification and selection, while the last three digits are the coffee classification selection number. For example, 74110 is the variety numbered 110 that was selected in 1974.

Therefore, in the future, the appearance of "Heirloom" in the variety section of Ethiopian coffee beans will become increasingly rare, replaced by "Landrace" and those coffee varieties that have been clearly named.

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