What is Arabica Coffee and Its Varieties

Today, Arabica is synonymous with good coffee. Supermarket shelves are filled with products labeled "100% Arabica", people, although they want to get a delicious cup of coffee at home, ask in specialized stores only for Arabica. This article will help us learn more about the most popular type of coffee in the world. Understand what is true and what is not, because the mass coffee culture of consumption is a mixture of marketing, myths, and stereotypes around coffee.

What is Arabica?

Arabica (Coffea Arabica) is an evergreen coffee tree, belonging to the genus coffee, the family madder. The height of the tree can reach 8-10 meters, but often, it is not allowed to grow higher than 3-5 meters, so that it is more convenient to collect fruits (berries).

How Arabica Came to Be

Arabica is the result of natural crossing of two types of coffee: robusta and eugenioides. Eugenioides is considered to be the mother of arabica, and robusta is the father, so when people say that robusta is bad coffee, it is at least unethical to offend the parent of arabica. We have described robusta in more detail in this article.

Where did Arabica originate?

Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of Arabica, although to be more precise, it is a geographical triangle in Africa: southwest Ethiopia, northern Kenya and southeast Sudan. It was from here that Arabica began its journey around the world, starting from the Arabian Peninsula, which gave Arabica coffee its legendary name.

Where does Arabica grow?

Arabica grows mainly, like other coffee trees, in an equatorial climate, at an altitude of 600 to 2500 meters above sea level, at a temperature of 15 to 24 degrees.

The coffee tree blossoms and bears fruit all year round, for 50 years, especially the first 15 years. Moreover, the number of harvests directly depends on the climate, for example, in the mountains, where it is drier and cooler, they harvest one crop, and in warm and humid valleys, up to 4 times a year. Usually, during the year, one Arabica coffee tree produces 5 kg. of berries, from which about 1 kg. of finished beans are obtained. Just think about how much work it is.

Arabica bean shape

This life hack is not always true, when choosing olives, yes, but not for coffee. For example, we roast more than 15 types of Arabica from different parts of the world, and they all vary in shape and size: Ethiopian Irgacheffe is quite small, Nicaragua Maragogype is huge, and Brazil Santos is something in between. And all this is Arabica, and what unites them is an oblong-oval shape. A little later, talking about Arabica varieties, we will figure out why this happened in nature. By the way, you can see our full range of Arabica in the corresponding section.

Composition of Arabica beans

In the past, we said that caffeine is a kind of evolutionary reaction of the coffee tree to protect itself from pests. Arabica grows higher than other coffee trees, so it does not need to produce much caffeine for protection, and its content in the beans is not high, 1-1.5%. Speaking about other indicators of the composition of the Arabica grain, it is worth highlighting two more: essential oils, responsible for the richness of the aroma, about 18% and sugar, on average 8%.

How Arabica is used and what it gives to coffee

It can be said that Arabica is the most important type of coffee on the planet, as its share in world production is about 70%. The use of Arabica is different, below we will consider three main areas, and also talk about the purposes for which it is used:

In espresso blends. If robusta is added to blends to increase the density, bitterness and strength of the drink, then arabica gives the blend acidity and a variety of unique aromas, due to the higher content of essential oils.

In single-sort coffee. This is for those who like to try coffee in its "pure form", from a specific country, region, plantation, from where it grew.

For instant and flavored coffee. In both cases, the cheapest coffee is almost always taken.

Varieties (varieties) of Arabica

First of all, it is worth understanding how a variety of Arabica can appear. In fact, there are two ways:

Natural. It is either a natural crossbreeding, which is how Arabica came to be, or a natural mutation, which is how Bourbon and Maragogype came to be, which we will talk about later.

Artificial. If with the natural method everything is clear, nature does its job, then with the artificial method man is already involved. Its goal is "on the surface": to breed a new variety of coffee tree, which will be fruitful, susceptible to parasites and most importantly, will give delicious coffee. This method is called selection.

It is also very important to understand that the genetic base of coffee is quite poor, since long ago, only one variety of Arabica - Typica - went on a round-the-world trip. And today, the main share of the world's Arabica production is based on about 25 varieties, mostly derived from the evolution of that very Typica. Now, we will talk about the most famous representatives of Arabica:

Bourbon is the first natural mutation of Typica that was discovered on Reunion Island, the name at that time was Bourbon, hence the nickname. In principle, the historical logic of the name of coffee mainly depended on the place where the coffee tree with the new mutation was discovered.

Caturra – this mutation was discovered in Brazil in the mid-20th century. The new tree turned out to be more productive than Typica and Bourbon, and also shorter, which made it easier to pick the berries. Soon, Caturra spread throughout the American continent, pushing Typica and Bourbon aside.

Maragogype - this coffee is very popular, especially in stores. It is called "elephant grain" and is bought "by the eyes". It appeared in the Brazilian state of Bahia, near the city of Maragogype