What is the Sidra Coffee Variety? Where Does the Sidra Coffee Variety Come From?

In recent years the Sidra variety has drawn a great deal of attention, appearing frequently in major world-class competitions and on the menus of many coffee shops. That has left plenty of people curious about where Sidra actually comes from.

What is Sidra?

The name Sidra is a phonetic rendering of a Spanish word meaning "cider" or "apple juice." The Sidra plant has a noticeably thick, sturdy trunk and grows quite tall, reaching a maximum height of up to 4 meters. It carries dark green leaves with wavy edges, slender five-petaled flowers, and pointed cherries larger than those of other Arabica varieties. Its beans are also longer than those of typical Arabica.

Sidra fruits grow densely and yields are relatively high. While it has little resistance to leaf rust, it shows some resistance to certain pests and coffee diseases. It is suited to cultivation at altitudes between 1,600 and 1,800 meters in shaded environments.

Rise to Prominence

Sidra first came to prominence in 2019, when Jooyeon Jeon, a barista from South Korea, used a Sidra from Colombia's Tucumán Farm to win the World Barista Championship (WBC). At the time it was introduced as "Bourbon Sidra," a hybrid of Red Bourbon and Typica. In the 2022 and 2023 competitions that followed, the champions also chose Sidra varieties from Colombia.

At first many people assumed Sidra was a hybrid that originated in Colombia. That is not the case. According to some reports, Sidra actually came from Pichincha Province in Ecuador, where a Nestlé coffee breeding center once stood, established to develop hybrids of Ethiopian heirloom varieties with Bourbon and others. When the center closed, its breeding seeds were dispersed locally.

Local farmers later found and began cultivating them, discovering both the Typica Mejorado and Sidra varieties. Those two became the main coffees grown in Ecuador, and they appeared frequently in Ecuador's first Cup of Excellence (COE) in 2021. Later, through exchanges between farmers, Sidra was brought to Colombia for cultivation, and Colombia is where it ultimately made its name.

Genetic Analysis and Current Cultivation

Testing by World Coffee Research (WCR) later showed that Sidra's genetics are very close to Ethiopian local landraces. This further confirmed that Sidra came from Nestlé's coffee breeding center and also explains why Sidra carries certain floral and fruity characteristics.

Today, because of Sidra's poor resistance to coffee leaf rust and its environmental demands, such as needing shade cultivation above 1,600 meters, it has not been widely planted. It is grown mainly in Colombia and Ecuador.

FrontStreet Coffee's Sidra Selection

FrontStreet Coffee naturally would not miss out on this popular variety. We selected Sidra from the renowned Finca El Diviso in Colombia's Huila region. Brewed, it offers bright, full-bodied grape and passion fruit flavors with acidity, accompanied by honey-like sweetness and a rounded mouthfeel.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this origin story has you curious, FrontStreet Coffee's own Sidra is the place to start: the FrontStreet Colombia Sidra from Finca La Divisa is the same lot highlighted above. It is processed with an anaerobic natural method and roasted medium-light to preserve its native fruit, opening with jasmine and citrus in the dry aroma, then a dense, juicy mix of passion fruit, blueberry, grape, and apricot on the palate. The bright acidity is clean and gentle, with a faint spice note at mid-palate and a lingering cocoa-sweet finish, balanced and full of layers. It works well for pour-over, espresso SOE, and cold drip, and an iced pour-over brings out its fresh, smooth grape-juice character.

To explore Colombia's more classic side, the FrontStreet Colombia Huila is washed and roasted medium-dark, showing dark chocolate and nutty sweetness, moderate crema, and a full body. It suits pour-over and the French press as well as the moka pot and espresso machine, and it handles an Americano or latte with ease.