Coffee Varieties: An Introduction

There are over 100 species of the coffea plant, a flowering tree belonging to the Rubiaceae family. Of course, you know a subset of these fruit-bearing shrubs as the coffee plant. Amongst those ~120 species, the two most common are Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora. More commonly known as simply Arabica and Robusta, these two species are responsible for almost all of the world’s coffee production.

Beneath these two species lays an ever growing family tree of varieties and cultivars. Some varieties you might be familiar with are Typica and Bourbon, and they are naturally occurring clones from seed. Some examples of cultivars you could likely know are Catuai and Pacamara. Cultivars, also known as hybrids, are a cultivated variety propagated by humans using cross pollination.

(A word on words. “Varietal” is casually used in the coffee industry to describe varieties, but they are not one and the same and to do so is simply incorrect. For the sake of linguistics and taxonomy, a variety is a noun (thing) and a varietal is an adjective (description of the thing). Most commonly used in the world of wine, a varietal refers to a wine made with a dominating percentage of one grape variety. For example, a Pinot Noir varietal necessitates the wine being at least 75% Pinot Noir grapes. We have wrongly adopted this language in our own industry.)

Much like different varieties of apples have unique flavours and appearances and different varieties of grapes create various types of wine, each variety of c. arabica has its own unique characteristics not limited to growing potential, disease resistance, flavour profile, shape, and size.

World Coffee Research has done an extensive amount of work categorizing and cataloguing the ever growing list of coffee varieties, and their Variety Catalog remains the best online tool for learning about each variety.

If you want to learn more about the differentiation between coffee varieties by the way they appear, I’ve put together a visual resource called the Variety Library.

The purpose of the variety library is to give you a visual representation of as many varieties as possible so you can learn to identify what you’re drinking before you even taste it. Just as each variety of coffee tastes unique, they all have a unique appearance as well - both in shape and size. The colour differences you’ll note are mostly due to various processing methods, so that identification is included as well.

Using the library is easy. Simply scroll to your desired section by following the alphabetical order, or browse leisurely to your heart’s content. Each image is proportionately scaled, so you can compare and contrast the size of each variety accordingly. In the case of multiple images of a single variety, take note of any variances you see according to the various growing regions and/or processes.

Check out the Variety Library here!

If you find this resource helpful, share it with a friend so we can increase our coffee literacy together!