Typica Coffee Beans Belong to Premium Coffee Varieties - The Ancient Pioneer in Typica and Bourbon Coffee World

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Typica and Bourbon Varieties

In Ethiopia, the recognized homeland of Arabica coffee, there are as many as 2,000 known coffee varieties, with even more unknown varieties waiting to be discovered in the wild coffee forests. Most of these are collectively referred to as "heirloom varieties." For instance, the Geisha variety, which we are familiar with and love, is widely considered to be an heirloom variety from Ethiopia.

Today, we're going to discuss Typica and Bourbon, which are the two oldest families among these "heirloom varieties." They ventured out of Ethiopia and spread across the world, undertaking the great mission of bringing delicious coffee to the global community.

Typica

In Ethiopia, the recognized homeland of Arabica coffee, there are as many as 2,000 known coffee varieties, with even more unknown varieties waiting to be discovered in the wild coffee forests. Typica stands as the most ancient and outstanding among these native varieties. Typica has given rise to numerous excellent coffee varieties. Mandheling, Blue Mountain, Elephant Bean, Kona, and others are all derived varieties of Typica.

However, Typica itself, while possessing excellent flavor characteristics, has a relatively weak constitution, poor disease resistance, is susceptible to leaf rust, and has low fruit yield, making it economically disadvantageous. In recent years, it has gradually been replaced by Caturra and Catuai (both variants of Bourbon) in Central and South America, becoming increasingly rare.

Bourbon

Alongside Typica as ancient and superior varieties is Bourbon. (Some sources also suggest that Bourbon is a variant of Typica that was earlier transplanted to Yemen.) The coffee varieties derived from Bourbon are also extremely rich. Pacas, Red Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon, Kenya's "SL28" and "SL34," Caturra, Villa Sarchi, and others are all direct derivatives of Bourbon.

Moreover, Bourbon itself boasts vigorous vitality, with better resistance to leaf rust than Typica, yet its flavor is not inferior to Typica—it's even superior, often winning in cupping competitions. Therefore, its yield is also slightly higher than that of Typica.

These two ancient ancestors have already achieved remarkable results as parent varieties individually. When they combined... besides Ethiopia, the origin of Arabica coffee, most mutant or hybrid varieties currently cultivated or discovered in Central and South America, India, and East Africa are based on Typica and Bourbon.

In other words, apart from their respective mutated varieties, the remaining ones are their hybrid varieties. This is truly remarkable—their descendants now dominate the specialty coffee world.

Key Takeaway: These two ancient varieties, Typica and Bourbon, have propagated in the New World's diverse terroirs for three hundred years, creating thousands of variants and hybrid varieties.

About FrontStreet Coffee

In short, FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research hub that enjoys sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. Our unconditional sharing is aimed at helping more friends fall in love with coffee. Every month, we hold three coffee promotion events with significant discounts because FrontStreet Coffee wants to provide the best coffee to more friends at the lowest possible price—this has been our mission for the past six years!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473