Different varieties of coffees


There are two major species of coffees in this world: Arabica and Robusta.

Arabica is known to be the first kind of coffee ever to be cultivated on earth. It consists of 70- 75% of coffees around the world. It is of high quality, has prominent fruity, flowery, pleasant flavour notes to it.ย 


Robusta unlike arabica, it is of rather lower quality. It is full bodied, much bitter due to its pyrazine content and has a prominent earthy flavour to it.
In the โ€˜Specialityโ€™ coffee sector only Coffee Arabica is used.ย 
Coffee Varieties

โ€˜Varietyโ€™ refers to subspecies of the two species- Arabica and Robusta. There are multiple different subspecies. Lets take a few examples from around the world.

  1. Geisha- is a variety of Arabica, named after the village of Gesha from Ethiopia. It was planted first in the 1950s. Geisha is the most expensive coffee variety in the world with pleasant aromatics, multiple fruity and flowery flavour notes, well balanced, and juicy sweet acidity.
  1. Bourbon- These are subspecies of Arabica. This variety was first grown on the island of Bourbon in France which is now called Reunion in 1708. Since then it was grown throughout Brazil. The cup profile for Bourbon is generally sweet.
  1. Maragogipe- are a subspecies of Arabica, grown in Maragogipe, Bahia, Brasil. These are also called โ€™Elephant Coffee Beansโ€™ because of its large size. They are known to have not much flavour, but these flavours can be enhanced by honey process, and are a natural mutation from Typica.
  1. Pacamara- These are a mutation of Pacas, and Maragogipe coffees, originated from El Salvador. They are large in size, and have outstanding flavour and cup attributes, including floral, and red fruit.

Indian Coffee Varieties

  1. S.795- Selection 795. This is the most popular and most commonly planted variety of Arabica coffee in India. I t was first planted in the 1940s. It produces high quality, with high yield. It is a hybrid made from the Kent Variety and s 288, and has subtle mocha flavour notes.
  1. Kents- It is known to be the first variety of Arabica coffee in India, which was planted by an Englishman with the same name. It is known to have excellent cup attributes, but now it is not produced in most of the areas.
  1. Cauvery- Cauvery is also know as Catimor which is a hybrid of Caturra which is a mutant of the Bourbon variety, and the tough and resistant

    Hybrido-de-Timor. It was first grown in Portugal in 1959.

Our Gentle Green | Ratnagiri Anaerobic is Cauvery.

  1. Sin 9- Selection 9 is a subspecies Arabica, which is a hybrid between Tafarikela, from Ethiopia and Hybrido-de-Timor.

Hope you learnt something here! Do leave a comment about what you would like to read next!

Back to blog