Arabica Coffee Classification what kinds of Arabica coffee beans are there and how much is Arabica?

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There are many varieties of coffee in the world, and there are countless wild coffee species in Ethiopia, the hometown of coffee. Arabica coffee is generally grown at an altitude of more than 1200 meters, of which Arabica accounts for a higher proportion of coffee than Robusta coffee beans, about 70%. Arabica coffee beans were introduced into Europe from the Arab region and can be divided into tin card species and bourbon species according to their different places of introduction. In addition, it can be subdivided into many different species by means of gene mutation and hybridization.

Arabica coffee, as one of the three major varieties of coffee beans, Arabica coffee alone has many coffee varieties. Qianjie will introduce you to the relevant Arabica coffee. The varieties of Arabica coffee grown in each country are different, but there are related links. For example, the famous Panamanian rose summer variety, we should not think that growing in Panama is the native species of Panama. In fact, rose summer coffee was first planted in the rose summer forest of Ethiopia.

After the discovery of Rosa coffee in Ethiopia, it was sent to research institutes in Kenya, then introduced to Uganda and Tanzania in Africa, to Costa Rica, and then to Panama, where the Rosa variety took root and became the top coffee bean in the world.

As the popularity of Rosa coffee is getting higher and higher, many places have also introduced Rosa varieties. Just as the Blue Mountain of Jamaica has begun to grow Rosa coffee, it is a testament to how popular the flavor of the Rosa variety is. Now that it comes to Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, Qianjie will introduce the Arabica Coffee in Jamaica's Blue Mountain. Jamaica mainly grows iron pickup varieties, with 4 to 5 meters high, horizontal growth of lateral branches, bronze leaves and long tree life. And iron pickup is the best coffee variety flavor, sweet feeling is also very good, but there is a disadvantage, that is, the yield is too low, and easy to get sick, very easy to infect leaf rust.

Therefore, there are very few places to grow the varieties of iron pickup coffee, and most of them are the varieties of iron pickup-bourbon. The coffee tree transplanted from Ethiopia had a genetic mutation when it was planted on the French island of Bourbon and has now spread to East Africa and Brazil. The tree is 5m high, the lateral branches grow obliquely upward, and the leaves are green. Although this tree species is similar to the tin card species, it is stronger and has more yield than the iron card species. Bourbon is also a variety of Arabica coffee with excellent flavor, and compared with iron pickup, it has a high yield, although it is also susceptible to diseases, but fortunately, it has a high yield.

Speaking of bourbon, Qianjie had to introduce Brazil, a coffee giant. Because most of the coffee varieties in Brazil are bourbon varieties, bourbon has mutated in Brazil, giving rise to many different flavors of bourbon coffee. For example, Yellow bourbon is currently grown only in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil, and there are pink bourbon varieties with invisible genetic mutations in red bourbon and yellow bourbon, which are very rare and precious. These two coffee beans are also on the shelves on Qianjie Street. One is Huang bourbon from Queen's Manor in Brazil, and the other is Isabella pink bourbon from Colombia.

According to Qianjie, there are more than 3000 original varieties of coffee in Ethiopia, several of which have been selected and cultivated. The variety of coffee in Yejasuefei region is very unique, with a very strong floral and fruity aroma, can be called one of the highest-level coffee varieties. Brazil, as the largest coffee producer in the world, the picking technology and treatment of coffee have been very advanced, no longer picking coffee fruits by hand, but using machines, so this will also lead to a problem, that is, the maturity of coffee is uneven, and because most of the Arabica coffee beans are grown on the plain, it is not conducive to the accumulation of coffee substances, so the flavor of Brazilian coffee is relatively insipid. Without Colombian coffee beans, the taste is balanced and layered.

Brazilian coffee and Colombian Arabica coffee are very similar in flavor, in part because of their geographical proximity. You may have a question, since we are close, why the taste is different, which involves the topography and climate. The big reason why Arabica coffee is different from Robusta coffee is the terrain. Arabica is mostly grown at higher elevations, while Robusta has very low soil conditions and is usually planted at low elevations. Because the higher the altitude, the higher the density of the coffee beans, the greater the firmness, and the longer the fruit maturity time, so the higher the sugar content inside the coffee, so the flavor will be better than the low altitude coffee beans. so that's why some countries or producing areas grade coffee beans according to hardness or height.

So it makes sense that Brazilian coffee beans grown at low altitudes don't taste as good as Arabica beans at high altitudes in Colombia. But planting at high altitude will also add some difficulty to the harvest of coffee fruit. Let me give you an example of Qianjie. In plain terrain like Brazil, as long as the gap between each tree is kept at a certain distance when planting coffee trees, and this distance is just enough for the machine to harvest, then part of the manpower is saved and the cost is saved. Just like the Colombian coffee beans just introduced in front street, they are grown on the slopes of the Andes, and the machines cannot get in at all, so they can only be harvested by manpower, so the price of coffee beans will be correspondingly higher.

However, nature is so magical that when everyone thinks that only Arabica coffee beans above 1200 meters above sea level will be rich in flavor, there are always some special cases. According to Qianjie, the Kona coffee beans from the Queen's Manor in the Hawaiian Islands are only about 1100 meters above sea level. Because Hawaii has an island climate, the coffee produced is full of flavor, so coffee cultivation altitude is one of the conditions to measure Arabica coffee, not the only one.

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