Pour-Over Caturra Coffee Bean Variety Introduction - Balanced Flavor with Chocolate Notes

Caturra may not be a name most drinkers know, yet it quietly underpins a huge share of the coffee we drink every day. It is a compact, productive mutation of Bourbon, and its story starts on a single farm in Brazil.

FrontStreet Coffee - Caturra Variety Introduction

Coffee comes from countless origins and varieties. Different varieties, processed and roasted in different ways, show wildly different flavors. The fundamental principle stays the same, though: coffee is divided into three main categories, Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica, also known as the "three major native coffee species."

Caturra is a natural hybrid variety of Bourbon. It was further developed and widely cultivated by the Alcides Carvalho Coffee Center at the São Paulo State Agricultural Research Institute (IAC) in Brazil, and it went on to bring profound changes to the coffee industry worldwide.

In 1937, the IAC received seed samples from northeastern Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In a field of Bourbon coffee trees, a shorter plant with shorter distances between its branches caught the attention of local farmers. Research revealed that Caturra is a natural mutation of Bourbon, arising from a single gene change.

That single gene controls the internodal distance between branches and the overall height of the plant. Compared with Bourbon, then, Caturra plants are shorter and the gaps between branches are smaller. A shorter plant makes harvesting easier for farmers, while the tighter spacing between branches allows more fruit to be produced. Together, these two traits give Caturra a higher yield than Bourbon.

Caturra typically matures faster and resists disease better than traditional Arabica varieties, making it something like a high-yield, disease-resistant version of Bourbon.

At the same time, like Bourbon, Caturra adapts well to most coffee-growing environments, but it performs best at altitudes between 1200 and 2000 meters with annual rainfall between 2500 and 3500 millimeters. The higher the altitude, the better the quality, though the yield drops accordingly.

In fact, Caturra is not the only variety to emerge through mutation. Similar mutations include the Pacas variety in El Salvador and the Villa Sarchi variety in Costa Rica. Genetically, in every case, the change is very similar to what happened in Bourbon.

Caturra grown in different regions shows different flavor characteristics. For example, natural-processed Caturra from Costa Rica carries chocolate notes.

Knowledge Point

Typica is an old variety with excellent flavor, a good mouthfeel, and a distinct aroma, but its disease resistance is weak.

In Summary

FrontStreet Coffee is a dedicated coffee research establishment, happy to share what we know with everyone. Our unconditional sharing aims to help more people fall in love with coffee. That has been the mission behind the past six years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

To taste where Caturra's Bourbon roots come from, look to Brazil, the country that gave the variety its start. FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is a classic single-origin Brazilian, roasted to a medium level so it pours out the rich aromas of cream peanut, toast, caramel, and hazelnut. The body is round and smooth, hardly acidic, with a gentle bittersweet finish, and it works just as well in a moka pot, a siphon, a French press, or as an espresso SOE.

For something a little rarer, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate is a Yellow Bourbon, a red-fruit mutation of the same family that produced Caturra. Grown in Mogiana on fertile red volcanic soil, it shows a clean sugarcane sweetness along with fruit and chocolate, a touch lighter and sweeter than the Red Bourbon. Both are fine reminders that the Bourbon family, Caturra included, is the quiet foundation of so much great coffee.