What is Bourbon Coffee? How to Introduce Pink Bourbon Coffee's Flavor Profile

What Is Bourbon Coffee?

Bourbon coffee was first cultivated on Bourbon Island — today's Réunion Island, lying about 650km east of Madagascar.

Alongside Typica, Bourbon ranks among the oldest premium coffee varieties still in cultivation.

Trace the lineage back far enough and Bourbon and Typica share a common root. Early Typica plants transplanted to Bourbon Island mutated over several generations of natural reproduction. In vigor, disease resistance, tree form, and cup quality, the new type clearly outperformed the original Typica, and it was eventually named after the island itself: Bourbon.

Bourbon is a natural mutation of Typica and a historically significant variety in its own right. Both belong to the Coffea arabica species. Typical Bourbon cherries ripen from green to a bright red — what we know as Red Bourbon. The fruit is short and round (hence the name Round Bourbon), with dense pulp and seeds, high sweetness, and bright acidity.

Beyond Red Bourbon, however, there are also Yellow Bourbon, the rare Orange Bourbon, and the precious Pink Bourbon.

Pink Bourbon arises from a cross of Yellow Bourbon and Red Bourbon. Yellow and Red Bourbon both express dominant genes with relatively stable reproduction; the pink offspring, by contrast, express recessive traits, and crosses involving them are highly prone to segregation in the next generation.

What's more, coffee trees reproduce sexually via pollen, and surrounding trees with dominant traits readily cross-pollinate Pink Bourbon, disrupting its flowering and fruiting from one season to the next. This is the main reason Yellow and Red Bourbon are common while Pink Bourbon remains rare.

FrontStreet Coffee Colombia Pink Bourbon

Flavor Profile: Sweet orange, sugarcane sweetness, cherry tomato, and a pleasant juice-like quality.

The Pink Bourbon variety was first discovered in Pailón, Huila, Colombia, and today is cultivated mainly in the Huila region.

About FrontStreet Coffee

In short, FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee knowledge hub dedicated to sharing everything it knows with enthusiasts, without reserve, in the hope of helping more people fall in love with coffee. Every month we run three coffee promotions with substantial discounts, because FrontStreet Coffee wants to put great coffee within everyone's reach at the lowest possible prices. That has been our mission for the past six years!

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

To taste a classic Bourbon for yourself, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate is the benchmark. It is an early-discovered Yellow Bourbon from the world's largest coffee-producing country, roasted medium to bring out cream, peanut, toast, and sugarcane aromas — mellow and sweet with low acidity, and equally good as pour-over, moka pot, or espresso.

For a fruitier Arabica experience, FrontStreet's Colombia Sidra — a variety with links to Bourbon and Ethiopian landraces — is roasted medium-light to reveal florals, tropical fruit, grape, and passion fruit over a juice-like body, while the washed Yirgacheffe Chichu Cooperative (top-grade G1) shows elegant white florals, citrus, orange, and green tea in a classic washed profile.