What Are the Varieties of Arabica Coffee Beans and What's the Difference Between Bourbon and Typica Subspecies

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FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Typica and Bourbon Varieties

In biological terms, coffee divides into Arabica, Robusta and Liberica. The varieties actually consumed worldwide are mainly Arabica and Robusta. Broadly speaking, Arabica is used for single-origin and specialty coffee. From the standpoint of coffee culture and genetics, Bourbon and Typica are the two most important branches of Arabica coffee.

Bourbon Variety

The Bourbon variety originates in Ethiopia and is a natural mutation of Typica. It first appeared on Reunion Island and was first recorded in 1947. Burundi, Rwanda and the South American regions are the main growing areas for Bourbon. Although the variety resembles Typica, Bourbon is more vigorous than Typica, yields more, contains less caffeine and forms a shorter plant. Its disease resistance is very low and it is especially susceptible to leaf rust.

Bourbon is a sub-variety that mutated from Typica and, alongside Typica, belongs to the oldest coffee varieties still in existence. When the fruit ripens it turns a bright red.

Typica Coffee

Typica is a sub-variety within Arabica. It originally grew on Martinique Island. Central America, Jamaica, the Kona region of Hawaii, Papua New Guinea and East Timor are the main growing areas for Typica today. To get higher yields from high-quality Typica, the variety is usually cross-bred with others. Typica is famous for its sweetness, and some of the world's best coffees come from the Typica family, among them Blue Mountain, Sumatra and Kona.

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Typica is the thread that runs through some of the most famous names in coffee, and Blue Mountain is the clearest example. Jamaican Blue Mountain is a Typica variety prized for its limited supply and exceptional quality, and it represents one of the finest Arabica types. The crop is harvested from June to November each year and is picked entirely by hand so that the cherries are genuinely ripe, after which the beans pass through washing, pulping, fermentation, dehydration, sun-drying, hulling and roasting. Every step of the green bean processing is supervised by dedicated quality control staff. Because the coffee is so valuable, Jamaica also uses distinctive packaging: where other coffees travel in 60kg burlap sacks, Blue Mountain is packed and shipped in wooden barrels standardised at 70kg each, with Jamaica the last country still using traditional wooden barrels for coffee. Blue Mountain beans must also carry quality certification from the Jamaican Coffee Industry Board, the only body authorised to issue it, and each export batch is sampled, roasted, ground and brewed by specialist quality supervisors to confirm it meets the standard. Strict as those rules are, it was the Japanese market that really opened the world up to Blue Mountain and made it a byword for premium coffee; because of historical trade ties, Japan's UCC Corporation buys the majority of these beans and prices have stayed consistently high.

When buying Blue Mountain, certification matters. Genuine Jamaican Blue Mountain does not carry a traceability code, but importers normally hold complete export certification and proof of origin, or the beans show obvious origin-specific characteristics. FrontStreet Coffee's product images, for example, show certificates from Jamaica's Clifton estate and stacks of the used wooden barrels unique to Blue Mountain green beans, since the traditional 15, 45 and 70 kilogram barrels are themselves a mark of authenticity; a seller able to provide full certification and origin documentation is generally the more trustworthy one. FrontStreet's Blue Mountain No. 1 is the highest grade, from the long-established Clifton estate, where coffee has been grown and processed since roughly 1750. The farm's planting and processing area sits at an average of 4300 feet (1310.64 metres), and the altitude, the gentle afternoon cloud that shades the hills, ample sunlight and mineral-rich soil give the trees excellent growing conditions and lengthen the ripening of the cherry. It is roasted medium-dark to bring out the full, rounded traditional profile that turns bitter into sweet, and it is roasted fresh within 5 days, so the beans arrive still at their peak and can be brewed straight away.

Blue Mountain is remarkably drinkable however you brew it, since its balance means pour-over, moka pot and espresso each show a different layer. For pour-over, FrontStreet recommends a Kono dripper, which rounds out the body; use a standard 15g dose and rest the beans 4-7 days from the roast date before brewing, counting the roast date as day one. Grind coarser than you would for a light roast, roughly the texture of granulated sugar, and use water at 87-88°C — many bitter, scorched cups come from water that is too hot, though water that is too cool leaves the coffee flat and dull. A 1:15 ratio works best: some recipes call for 1:13 or tighter for a stronger cup, partly to avoid bitterness in the tail, but that also shortens the finish, and FrontStreet finds 1:15 expresses the coffee's overall balance better provided temperature and grind are handled well. Pour in three stages — 30g of water to bloom for 30 seconds, then a slow vertical, small-flow circular pour to 120g and stop, then a third pour to 225g with slightly faster flow and circling to keep fines from clogging the dripper and over-extracting. The result is very clean, complex and gentle, with chocolate sweetness and a very strong body: rich and aromatic, with the sweet, acidic and bitter notes in perfect proportion, no real bitterness at all, only a moderate and beautifully judged acidity, and a long fruity tail.