The Story and Characteristics of Typica Coffee Beans - Is Typica an Arabica Variety?

Typica is one of the most iconic coffee varieties in the world. It traces back to the birthplace of Ethiopian Arabica coffee and is indispensable for understanding the coffee we drink today.

The Typica variety offers exceptionally excellent flavors and achieves outstanding scores in cupping. However, its disease and pest resistance is relatively weak, and it needs to be grown at higher altitudes (above 1200m) to develop better flavors.

What is Typica?

Typica is one of the oldest varieties within Arabica. Typica was once widely cultivated globally, but due to the impact of leaf rust disease, some major coffee-producing regions now prefer to grow coffee varieties with higher disease and pest resistance. Currently, the most famous Typica-producing regions include North Sumatra in Indonesia, Blue Mountain in Jamaica, Kona in Hawaii, and the old varieties in Yunnan, China.

Typica has distinctive characteristics and is likely the most easily recognizable variety. These plants have a conical shape with a main vertical trunk that can reach up to 5 meters in height. This height means that, compared to other varieties, the distance between branches and between nodes on the same branch is greater in Typica.

The most prominent characteristic of the Typica variety is that the top leaves exhibit a reddish-bronze color, which is why it's also called "Red Top Coffee." The coffee beans are relatively large, elongated, and pointed at both ends, somewhat resembling eggs. Typica coffee beans often have citrus acidity with a sweet aftertaste, and are praised by many as elegant and clear coffee beans. Ancient Typica plants are quite tall, about 5 meters/16.5 feet, making them not very conducive to manual harvesting. Typica trees have a conical shape with slightly inclined branches, where lateral branches form 50-70° angles with the vertical stem. Its trunk is slender and branches are thin. Due to its height and long-branch characteristics, when planting Typica trees, sufficient spacing must be maintained between plants.

However, Typica's disease resistance is very poor, making it difficult to resist leaf rust, coffee berry disease, and other common diseases, and its yield is also very scarce. Leaf rust is the most severe plant disease, first appearing in the coffee-producing region around Lake Victoria in East Africa in 1861. In 1970, leaf rust broke out in Bahia, Brazil, and since then, coffee-producing regions worldwide have gradually discovered cases of leaf rust. Coffee trees infected with leaf rust are equivalent to having an incurable disease, eventually withering and even dying. As an economic crop, Typica, with its low yield and poor disease resistance, is difficult to achieve profitability, so many growers choose to abandon it and switch to other varieties with better disease resistance.

As a high-quality coffee variety with rich aroma, Typica is still grown in various parts of the world today, with the most famous being Jamaica's FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain coffee. Growing elegant and pure-flavored Typica coffee beans is not simple—every step from natural terroir conditions, plant management, fruit harvesting, to post-processing must be adequately ensured for the coffee beans to develop positive flavors and textures. This also means producing high-quality Typica requires more investment in labor costs and expertise in techniques, which is why Blue Mountain coffee and Kona coffee are so precious.

FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain Typica Coffee Beans

FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans are of the Typica variety. Unlike many other coffee-producing regions, Jamaica is a relatively closed island nation with naturally superior microclimate conditions. Through over two hundred years of domestication and adaptation, Blue Mountain Typica has evolved better disease resistance, particularly showing stronger resistance to coffee berry disease than typical Typica, with more stable yield and quality. FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee is selected from the renowned local Clifton Farm, one of the oldest farms in the Blue Mountain region. In terms of flavor profile, this FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee offers a clean, mellow taste with nutty, chocolate, and caramel flavors.

Yunnan Typica Coffee Beans

Originally, the coffee varieties planted within Yunnan were ancient Typica and Bourbon. Later, Yunnan coffee was affected by global leaf rust, causing large-scale death of coffee trees and a significant reduction in planting area. Later, with the support of various foreign companies, high-yield, disease-resistant Catimor varieties were introduced. This also established Catimor's position in replacing the ancient Typica trees, becoming the main variety of Yunnan coffee today. Due to the low yield and disease susceptibility of Typica coffee beans, coupled with high management costs, growers need more time for exploration, which is why most Yunnan coffee farmers are unwilling to plant it.

To explore more coffee knowledge, FrontStreet Coffee went to Lincang, Yunnan in 2013 to begin the chapter of coffee cultivation. From site selection, variety selection, seedling cultivation, planting, harvesting, processing, to roasting, all were handled by FrontStreet Coffee's colleagues, from which they accumulated considerable experience and knowledge related to varieties, altitude, and processing methods.

Lincang, Yunnan is influenced by the warm and humid airflow from the Indian Ocean and southwest monsoon. The distinction between four seasons is not obvious, but dry and rainy seasons are clearly defined. There is abundant rainfall, long sunshine hours, short frost periods, and some areas are frost-free year-round. The立体气候 (three-dimensional climate) is distinct, making it very suitable for Arabica coffee cultivation. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee specifically chose the most primitive Typica. However, the delicate Typica is also notorious for its low yield and poor resistance, so FrontStreet Coffee invested considerable effort in cultivation and management. After 5-6 years of cultivation, FrontStreet Coffee finally harvested the first batch in 2020, produced using natural drying sun processing methods, and officially named "FrontStreet Coffee 2013."

After harvesting, FrontStreet Coffee's Typica coffee cherries immediately undergo sun-drying processing to maintain the coffee's freshness. FrontStreet Coffee first conducts screening, with flotation being one commonly used screening method. The screened coffee cherries are then dried under the sun. FrontStreet Coffee arranges personnel to regularly turn them to avoid uneven heating of the coffee cherries, which could lead to over-fermentation. When the coffee cherries dehydrate from bright red to dark purple and reach the target moisture content, they can be sent for hulling and roasting. FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Typica exhibits fuller fermentation flavors than washed processing, with prominent sweetness and aromas of caramel, berries, and black tea.

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