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

FrontStreet Coffee - Caturra Variety Introduction

Coffee comes from numerous origins and varieties. Different varieties, processed and roasted in various ways, exhibit vastly different flavor profiles. However, the fundamental principle remains: coffee is primarily 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. This variety has brought profound changes to the coffee industry worldwide.

In 1937, IAC received seed samples from northeastern Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Among a field of Bourbon coffee trees, a shorter plant with shorter internodal distances caught the attention of local farmers. Research revealed that Caturra is a natural hybrid variety of Bourbon, resulting from a single gene mutation in Bourbon.

This single gene mutation in Caturra controls the internodal distance between branches and the plant's height. Therefore, compared to Bourbon, Caturra plants are shorter with shorter distances between branches. The shorter plant height facilitates harvesting for coffee farmers, while the shorter internodal distances allow for more fruit production. These two factors result in Caturra having higher yields than Bourbon.

Caturra typically matures faster and is more disease-resistant than traditional Arabica varieties, making it somewhat similar to a high-yield, disease-resistant version of Bourbon.

Meanwhile, like Bourbon, Caturra also adapts well to most coffee-growing environments, but performs best in areas with altitudes between 1,200 to 2,000 meters and annual rainfall between 2,500 to 3,500 millimeters. The higher the altitude, the better the quality, but the lower the yield.

In fact, Caturra is not the only variety that emerged through mutation; similar mutated varieties include the Pacas variety in El Salvador and the Villa Sarchi variety in Costa Rica. Genetically speaking, in all cases, this mutation is very similar to Bourbon.

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

Knowledge Point

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

In Summary

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