Arabica Coffee Bean Varieties: Visual Characteristics & How to Distinguish Typica, Bourbon, and Geisha

Identifying Coffee Varieties by Appearance

Have you ever noticed coffee enthusiasts around you who seem to have extraordinary abilities? They can glance at coffee beans and immediately identify their variety and origin, leaving you amazed. How do they do it?

While the single-origin beans we encounter daily are all Arabica coffee beans, there are actually quite noticeable differences in appearance among different Arabica varieties. To be able to identify coffee varieties just by looking at their appearance, you must carefully observe each type of coffee bean, identify their characteristics, and commit them to memory. That's right—isn't this similar to learning coffee cupping?

Now, let's follow FrontStreet Coffee to get acquainted with these coffee beans that all look quite similar! Since most people have limited access to green beans, FrontStreet Coffee uses roasted beans for illustrations. If you happen to have a bag of coffee beans on hand, you can apply what you learn immediately by grabbing a handful to observe and identify.

Typica

First, let's talk about the template for Arabica—Typica. If you flip through any coffee book, whenever there's an illustration of Arabica coffee beans, the beans in the picture are most likely Typica. Typica beans generally have an oval shape—they're slender, elongated, flat, and plump, with a very standard appearance.

Bourbon

Bourbon coffee is a natural variant of Typica coffee. The Typica coffee trees originally planted in Yemen underwent mutation, producing coffee beans with a round shape, which is why they're also called "round-bodied coffee beans." Later, the French planted a batch of these round-bodied coffee seeds on Bourbon Island (now Réunion Island), and the name "Bourbon coffee" became widespread. Today, Brazil is the main country cultivating Bourbon coffee varieties. Bourbon coffee beans are characterized by short ends, a stout and round appearance, with particle size similar to Typica.

Typica and Bourbon are known as heirloom varieties in Arabica, and many widely cultivated coffee varieties that followed are mostly variants of these two varieties.

SL28 & SL34

The most classic examples are the SL28 and SL34 varieties widely grown in Kenya! Note that these are two different coffee varieties.

These two varieties are the result of classic artificial selection. "SL" is actually the abbreviation for "Scott Laboratory." This laboratory was established specifically to study coffee cultivation. They found 42 coffee varieties in the wild and cultivated them in experimental fields (note: this was artificial selection, not artificial hybridization). After more than 10 years of selection, they finally screened SL28 and SL34 as the varieties suitable for cultivation in Kenya.

Later research by experts revealed that SL28 belongs to Bourbon or its variants, while SL34 belongs to Typica or its variants. This is why we can find coffee beans with different appearances mixed together in Kenyan coffee. By classifying them by appearance, we can obtain the rounder SL28 and the more elongated SL34.

Caturra

Caturra is a natural variant of the Bourbon variety. Caturra plants have very close branch spacing, and the fruit size is smaller than Bourbon, which allows for more fruit production in the same space, significantly increasing coffee yield. Caturra beans are similar in shape to Bourbon, also tending toward roundness, but slightly longer than Bourbon, resembling small plump ovals.

Catuai

Catuai is an artificially cultivated hybrid of Caturra and Mundo Novo. Mundo Novo is the result of natural hybridization between Bourbon and Sumatran Typica. Therefore, Catuai naturally expresses Typica genes in its physical characteristics.

Catuai coffee beans are oval and flat, with a relatively slender tail end. In Central and South America, many growing regions plant Caturra and Catuai together, which is why we can find smaller, rounder Caturra beans and larger, more elongated Catuai beans in Central and South American coffees.

Geisha

Geisha coffee is probably the variety most familiar to everyone, but many friends have only heard its name without seeing its appearance. So FrontStreet Coffee will talk about its characteristics, starting with Panamanian Geisha as an example because it has the highest recognizability. Panamanian Geisha coffee beans are slender, pointed at both ends, plump and full in the middle, and the roasted beans somewhat resemble cocktail sausages.

For example, in a batch of "Flower Butterfly" beans, which includes Geisha, Caturra, and Catuai, we can first clearly separate out the large, elongated beans with pointed ends—this is the typical characteristic of Geisha coffee beans. Of course, smaller Geisha coffee beans have slightly lower recognizability, but with careful observation, they still meet the characteristic of being pointed at both ends and plump in the middle.

However, this characteristic doesn't apply to Ethiopian Geisha because Ethiopian Geisha coffee beans were found by tracing back to the forest in Ethiopia where samples were originally taken, after Panamanian Geisha became famous. They then searched the forest for varieties they believed had similar flavor profiles to Panamanian Geisha.

For example, the Geisha coffee varieties at Gesha Village Estate are called Gesha Village 1931. The estate owner traced historical records to find a place called the Gesha forest, believing that the British had sampled Geisha varieties from here. They also sampled here and finally selected Gesha Village 1931. Its selection wasn't based on genetic identification but rather on plant morphology, bean shape, and cupping profile. They believed from the samples that this coffee variety was similar to Panamanian Geisha.

As for Gesha Village, the owner found it by entering the Gesha forest again in 2011. Even if they found the right place, with thousands of varieties in the Gesha forest, they couldn't guarantee that the varieties they found were exactly the original Geisha (T2722). So it's normal for the bean characteristics to be different, as they're not the same variety after all.

Looking at size, Gesha Village's Geishas tend to be smaller. Gesha Village 1931 has slight pointed tips at both ends and is plump in the middle. Gesha Village Gesha has an oval shape and is relatively small.

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