Robusta Coffee Beans: Coarse Texture Like Cloth - Are Robusta Beans Really That Unpleasant?

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FrontStreet Coffee - Robusta Variety Introduction

Robusta and Arabica coffee come from different coffee trees, and the flavors and characteristics of the two coffees are different. Robusta has higher yields than Arabica, is easier to care for, has strong disease resistance, and lower production costs.

Robusta has much higher caffeine content than Arabica, at 2.7% and 1.5% respectively, but contains less sugar. Please note that caffeine content has nothing to do with taste - for example, dark-roasted Arabica has lower caffeine content than lightly roasted Robusta. Robusta typically has earthy flavors (some consider them burnt rubber taste), heavier bitterness, and lower acidity.

For this reason, Robusta is often used for inexpensive coffee, such as instant coffee. Robusta production accounts for 40% of global coffee production, with the remaining 60% being Arabica. Most Robusta comes from Vietnam, with wide distribution also in Brazil, Indonesia, India, and Uganda, while other regions have very small production.

Stephan Katongole is a coffee farmer from the Masala district in central Uganda. His company Coffeeyouknow produces high-quality Robusta. He says that Robusta's poor reputation mostly comes from poor agricultural methods during harvesting, especially post-harvest processing.

This begins with improper picking and storage - many farmers don't dry the coffee completely to the 11-13% moisture content. All these bad habits affect the final taste of the coffee, including acidity, earthiness, moldy flavors, etc. We can improve Robusta's cupping quality through some simple measures, such as only picking ripe cherries, processing immediately, using proper drying areas on raised beds, and good storage.

If the best basic techniques used for processing Arabica are applied to Robusta (with some modifications), many consumers and roasters will discover flavors they've never tasted before. Stephan says that if Robusta is processed well, it can achieve high cleanliness, bright acidity, and unique flavors.

The processing method for high-quality Robusta differs from traditional quality Robusta. After farmers pick coffee cherries, they deliver them to cooperatives within hours, where they are dried on appropriate drying beds. Because this process is centrally managed, coffee quality improves - coffee cherries can dry evenly with proper ventilation. The beans are then graded, selected by color sorting machines, and finally hand-picked.

Franziska says that simply improving harvesting and post-harvest techniques can enhance Robusta's cupping quality. She also emphasizes that the same Robusta variety can be used for standard, commercial, and premium quality Robusta - the difference lies only in processing methods.

Robusta quality is also related to altitude, so Uganda's high-altitude coffee creates unique flavors of hazelnut and milk chocolate, salty caramel, and peanut butter. One sample even had citrus fruit and lemongrass flavors - descriptions commonly used for Arabica.

Knowledge Point

Ethiopia holds an ancestral position in the coffee world as the birthplace of Arabica beans and currently Africa's largest Arabica-producing country. The Kaffa Forest in Ethiopia is even known as the "coffee gene bank."

In Brief

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