How to Distinguish Bourbon Coffee Beans - Hybrid Varieties Prove Superior Among Bourbon Lineage

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FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Bourbon Coffee Varieties

Bourbon

Bourbon is a genetic mutation of the native Typica variety that occurred on Réunion Island. It is also the parent or even grandparent variety of many popular Latin American coffee types, including Caturra, Catuai, Pacas, and Mundo Novo. Bourbon remains widely popular in Latin America today and has also crossed oceans to Africa, taking root in Rwanda and Burundi. Bourbon's ripe fruits are mostly red, but there are also yellow or orange varieties. Bourbon's yield is about 20% to 30% higher than Typica; although the flavor is slightly sweeter and sometimes better balanced, these two coffee varieties are overall very similar.

Compared to Typica, Bourbon plants have broader leaves and grow more densely. Although the fruit production is higher than Typica, the harvesting period is also 2 years, making it a low-yield variety. However, it offers excellent quality with wine-like acidity and sweet aftertaste. The coffee beans are relatively large, uniform in size, and evenly colored with a glossy appearance. For easier harvesting, farmers prune coffee trees to not exceed 150 centimeters.

Typical Bourbon coffee mainly develops from green fruits to ripe bright red fruits, which we know as Red Bourbon. The fruits are relatively short and round, also called Round Bourbon, with high density in flesh and seeds, high sweetness, and bright acidity. Besides Red Bourbon, there are actually Yellow Bourbon, the rare Orange Bourbon, and the even rarer Pink Bourbon.

Red Bourbon

Why is Bourbon specifically named Red Bourbon when Bourbon is just Bourbon?

In fact, the original Bourbon coffee trees, after flowering and fruiting, change color from green to light yellow, gradually to light orange, and finally to ripe (red) and fully ripe (deep red). Therefore, to distinguish it from other Bourbon varieties (Pink Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon, etc.), it is specifically called Red Bourbon. Bourbon is recommended to grow at altitudes above 1200 meters, where its flavor will be significantly better than Bourbon grown below 1000 meters.

Yellow Bourbon (Bourbon Amarello)

Yellow Bourbon is a unique Bourbon variety found in São Paulo, Brazil. It gets its name because the fruits remain orange-yellow when ripe instead of turning red. When Yellow Bourbon is grown in high-altitude areas, it exhibits excellent flavor characteristics. It swept the Brazil "Cup of Excellence" competition for two consecutive years, with the top three awards almost entirely dominated by Yellow Bourbon, becoming a sensation in the specialty coffee world. Yellow Bourbon typically offers nutty and chocolate flavors, with even and smooth acidity, faint and clean bitterness, and an overall bright and refreshing profile.

Pink Bourbon

After reading about Red and Yellow Bourbon, one can deduce that Pink Bourbon gets its name from its pink ripe fruits. Pink Bourbon is a hybrid variety cultivated from Red Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon, making it an extremely rare variety. The main reason for such rarity is that both the yellow genes of Yellow Bourbon and the red genes of Red Bourbon are recessive, easily interfering with each other, making Pink Bourbon difficult to produce. Additionally, Pink Bourbon is very similar to unripe Red Bourbon, making it hard to identify and often mixed together, resulting in low yields. Pink Bourbon actually has excellent disease resistance and a very distinctive flavor, with some lily flower notes and prominent lychee sweetness, truly remarkable.

Knowledge Point

Arabica coffee is generally believed to originate from the Ethiopian highlands and is widely distributed in tropical regions. Through repeated mutations and breeding, it has given rise to numerous varieties.

In Summary

FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research center that enjoys sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Additionally, we hold three low-discount coffee events every month because FrontStreet Coffee wants to offer the best coffee at the lowest prices to more friends. This has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past six years!

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