What's the Relationship Between Panama Geisha and Flower Queen? What's the Difference Between Arabica Typica and Bourbon?

The Diversity of Coffee Varieties

Just as apples have unique varieties like Granny Smith and Red Delicious, coffee also boasts countless different varieties. Beyond differences in appearance, variety is an important factor affecting coffee flavor, making it a crucial consideration when purchasing coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee previously published content on identifying common varieties by appearance, aiming to help everyone visually distinguish between different varieties. Of course, this method isn't practical in real life—after all, there are hundreds to thousands of coffee varieties, and countless beans share similar appearances. We typically cannot determine coffee bean varieties by appearance alone (in most cases). Still, it's quite necessary to get acquainted with them. Today, FrontStreet Coffee will share introductions to some common coffee varieties available in the market to deepen everyone's understanding~

Typica

To date, many varieties we recognize have evolved from two main categories under the Arabica species. Typica is one of these two ancestral varieties. It was not only the first coffee variety to leave Ethiopia and spread worldwide (via Yemen to the rest of the world), but also the representative of Arabica. The "Arabica image" we see online almost always depicts elongated, round Typica beans. The renowned Blue Mountain coffee uses the Typica variety.

Bourbon/Red Bourbon

Bourbon is the other ancestral variety, which spread to the world slightly later than Typica. It's important to note that Bourbon is a natural mutation of Typica. Because Typica is elongated, it presents an oval shape, while Bourbon has shorter ends and is overall shorter and rounder. When placed side by side, they are quite easy to distinguish.

It's worth mentioning that due to the later emergence of Yellow Bourbon (a hybrid of Bourbon and Yellow Botucatu), Bourbon acquired the alias "Red Bourbon" to distinguish it from Yellow Bourbon.

Whether Bourbon or Typica, although they possess excellent coffee flavor, they have almost no disease resistance. Therefore, they easily succumb to disease attacks. Coupled with high cultivation difficulty and low yield, many regions that originally grew these varieties switched to planting other varieties with higher disease resistance and yield after experiencing leaf rust outbreaks.

SL28, SL34

In 1930, the British established the Scott Agricultural Laboratories in Kenya to cultivate new varieties with strong disease resistance to replace old varieties, thus beginning more than a decade of research and breeding. Eventually, the SL series of bean varieties with high disease resistance was born! Among them, the most outstanding performing varieties were SL28 and SL34. "SL" stands for Scott Laboratories, while 28 and 34 are the variety numbers.

Initially, everyone believed they were both Bourbon mutations because most of the laboratory's seed sources came from Bourbon Island—the place where Bourbon "made its fortune"! However, recent testing by WCR (World Coffee Research) discovered that SL34 is not a Bourbon mutation; it's actually a Typica mutation. This explains why SL28 and SL34 have such different appearances—one is relatively round, the other elongated—which makes perfect sense when you think about it~

Caturra, Catuai

Caturra is a natural mutation of Bourbon. In the early 20th century, a small Bourbon plant was discovered in a Bourbon plantation in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Testing revealed this was due to genetic mutation. Therefore, this Bourbon mutation was named "Caturra," meaning "small one." Caturra has higher productivity than Bourbon and stronger adaptability, so it doesn't have high requirements for the growing environment (not prone to "dying").

Catuai is a hybrid of Caturra and Mundo Novo. Mundo Novo itself is a natural hybrid of Bourbon and Typica, initially named "H-2077." Catuai has high productivity, strong disease resistance, and suitable flavor profile. Meanwhile, it also inherited Caturra's compact appearance and "hardy" characteristics. It's clear that this variety is quite excellent, so its name was later changed from "H-2077" to "Catuai," meaning "very good."

Geisha

By now, everyone must be thoroughly familiar with Geisha. Although there are many types of Geisha on the market (such as Gorilla Geisha and Geisha 1931), the one that left us with the deepest impression is undoubtedly the "T2722" "player" that rose to fame in Panama.

Geisha was discovered in Ethiopia's Kaffa forest in 1931, but in the era of dark roast coffee, Geisha had no stage to showcase its talents. Not until after more than 70 years of wandering did it finally arrive in the specialty coffee era, which emphasizes flavor. Thus, Geisha rose to fame in Panama with its prominent floral and fruity notes. Interestingly, when Geisha was originally collected, its name was recorded incorrectly. It should have been recorded as "Gesha," but an extra "i" was added, making it "Geisha." Coincidentally, "Geisha" is the English word for "geisha" (a Japanese profession), so Taiwan began calling Geisha by the direct translation "艺伎" (geisha). This led to an Ethiopian heirloom variety that became popular in 2017 being named "花魁" (Flower Champion) when introduced to China, implying it's a variety that could surpass Geisha, because "花魁" represents the highest level among geisha.

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