Where are the best coffee beans from? Are Arabica beans the best choice? Exploring the composition of coffee beans

Which coffee beans are best is really a question about what is inside them, and the answer starts with the chemistry of the raw bean.

FrontStreet Coffee - Coffee Bean Composition Introduction

Composition of Raw Coffee Beans

Water: Moisture makes up 9%-13% of raw coffee beans and has almost no effect on their aroma.

Polysaccharides: The largest component of raw beans, at 35%-45%. Despite the name they are not sweet at all; these polysaccharides are the fibers that form the plant's skeletal structure. The polysaccharide content differs significantly between Arabica and Canephora.

Proteins: Protein accounts for 12%. Along with polysaccharides, these are the key structural components of the plant. Here too the polysaccharide content differs significantly between Arabica and Canephora.

Fats: Raw coffee beans do contain fat, made up of linoleic acid, palmitic acid, and others. In terms of fat content, Arabica is higher at 20%, while Canephora reaches at most 1%.

Sugars (Sucrose): Sucrose content in Arabica can reach 10%, while Canephora sits at 3%-7%.

Chlorogenic Acid: Chlorogenic acid accounts for 5%-8% of Arabica and 7%-11% of Canephora. There are many types of chlorogenic acid, and some are found only in Canephora.

Acids (other than chlorogenic acid): These include citric acid, malic acid, quinic acid, and phosphoric acid, which together account for only 2%.

Caffeine: Caffeine content in Arabica ranges from 0.9%-1.4%, while Canephora typically accounts for 2% and sometimes exceeds 3%.

Amino Acids: Amino acids make up 1%-2%, and those found in coffee beans include aspartic acid and glutamic acid. The proportions of the various amino acids differ between Arabica and Canephora. Together with sugars and chlorogenic acids, these amino acids also influence how each species colors and flavors during roasting.

In Brief:

FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research house dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation, hoping to help more people fall in love with coffee. We hold three discounted coffee events every month, because FrontStreet Coffee wants to provide the best coffee at the lowest prices to as many people as possible. This has been our mission for the past six years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Arabica is the species behind almost every specialty coffee, and its many varieties each express themselves differently. FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Sidra is a good demonstration. Sidra originated in Pichincha Province, Ecuador, where locals knew it as Sydra, and genetic comparison shows it is closely related to Ethiopian native varieties, leading researchers to suspect it arose from a cross between an experimental selection exported from Ethiopia and a local Ecuadorian Bourbon. It came to wider attention after the 2022 World Barista Championship, where champion barista Anthony Douglas competed with a Sidra from Finca El Diviso. FrontStreet's Sidra is roasted light-medium and is loved for its florals, tropical fruit, grapes, dried fruit, and passion fruit, with a juicy texture.

FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Huakui shows what a natural Arabica from Ethiopia can do. The variety is the most common native type in Ethiopia, a mix of several unidentified trees, so the beans vary in size. It carries a light floral note with especially prominent fruit, and the classic natural process brings out cream strawberry, mango, jackfruit, citrus, and blueberry, the ripe tropical character typical of FrontStreet's Sidamo naturals. The same concentrated berry aroma won it first place in the TOH green bean competition that year, and it is both delicious and well priced.

FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 is the benchmark for balance. The variety behind it is Typica, one of the archetypal Arabica types and the first to spread from Yemen through India, Indonesia, and Central and South America. Typica is balanced, gentle, and smooth, with acidity that does not bite and an aroma that is full and pure, though its poor disease resistance and low yield are real weaknesses. Blue Mountain Typica arrived in Jamaica from Martinique in the 1720s and over more than 200 years developed better resistance than Typica generally has, particularly against fruit rot, though it cannot reproduce its sweet, delicate fragrance outside Jamaica.

For the opposite end of the Arabica spectrum, FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Emerald Estate Red Label Geisha is the standard bearer. It shows elegant florals, citrus, peach, and a full composite fruit acidity, a creamy, silky texture, and a finish of oolong tea sweetness, so refined that it feels less like coffee than a fragrant fruit tea. Compared with other Arabica varieties, Geisha yields little, has a fragile plant, and is demanding about its environment. This Red Label comes from Panama's most famous estate, in the Boquete district of Chiriqui Province, where fertile volcanic soil, old-growth forest, year-round mist, and abundant rain create ideal conditions and give the coffee its striking range of flavors.