What is the Typica Variety and How Does It Taste? Is Typica an Arabica Subspecies?

FrontStreet Coffee - Typica Variety Introduction

What is Arabica?

Arabica is the most special of the 103 species in the Coffea genus. As far as we know, it is the only tetraploid plant in the genus, with four sets of chromosomes, and it self-pollinates, which gives it lower caffeine and a clean flavor profile. The other 102 coffee species are diploid, with two sets of chromosomes, and cross-pollinate. That is what makes Arabica the most precious species in the genus.

Arabica is in fact one of the main coffee tree species in the world. Of all coffee beans worldwide, Arabica varieties account for roughly 65%-80%. In a sense, many beans are Arabica varieties, such as Blue Mountain Typica, Brazilian Bourbon and Panama Geisha. The label "100% Arabica" can only tell you the bean's species.

Typica is relatively delicate and prone to coffee leaf rust, a common coffee disease, and it yields less, but its flavor is excellent, which makes it one of the best specialty varieties. Its descendants shine too: the famous "one king and one queen," Jamaica Blue Mountain and Hawaii Kona, are both Typica varieties.

Typica Coffee

Typica is a sub-variety of Arabica coffee. It originally grew in Martinique, and its main growing areas today include Central America, Jamaica, Hawaii's Kona region, Papua New Guinea and East Timor. To draw more yield from high-quality Typica, the variety is usually crossed with others. Typica coffee is famous for its sweetness, and some of the world's best coffees come from the Typica line, including Blue Mountain, Sumatra and Kona.

Typica green beans have slightly upturned ends and an oval shape. Seen from the side, the bean looks flat and thin, and even when grown at different altitudes the thickness of the side does not vary much.

Unlike other varieties, Typica coffee fruit is conical. Typica quality is extremely high, which makes it popular with plantations around the world. When it is well cultivated, Typica coffee has high sweetness, a pure taste and a pleasant acidity.

Knowledge Point: Ethiopia holds an ancestral place in the coffee world as the birthplace of Arabica and is today Africa's largest Arabica-producing country. Ethiopia's Kaffa Forest is known as the "coffee gene pool."

FrontStreet Coffee's Mission

In short: FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research hall dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. Our unrestricted sharing exists only to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Every month we hold three low-discount coffee events, because FrontStreet Coffee wants more friends to enjoy the best coffee at the lowest price. That has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past 6 years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Since Typica reaches its peak in Jamaica Blue Mountain, FrontStreet's Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1 is the obvious place to start. In the cup, authentic Blue Mountain shows a composite flavor of cream, caramel, chocolate, nuts, honey and a light fruit tone. It enters soft and rounded, fills the mid-palate with sweetness and finishes clean and long, rich in layers yet never showy. Instead of the sharp fruit acidity of some African coffees or the heavy bitterness of a dark roast, it finds an excellent balance among acidity, sweetness, bitterness and aroma, which is why so many professionals call it the specialty coffee most people find easiest to love.

Authenticity matters with Blue Mountain, and FrontStreet's Blue Mountain No.1, from the historic Clifton estate, is the top grade. Coffee has been grown and processed at Clifton since around 1750, on land averaging 4,300 feet, or 1,310.64 meters. The altitude, gentle afternoon cloud cover, ample sunshine and mineral-rich soil give the trees ideal growing conditions and slow the cherries' ripening, deepening flavor. Blue Mountain is traditionally shipped in 15, 45 and 70 kilogram barrels, and every barrel is itself a mark of the genuine article, along with the estate's certification and origin documents.