Robusta coffee beans taste as rough as Brobusta coffee beans taste so bad?

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Introduction to the varieties of Qianjie-Robusta

Robusta and Arabica coffee come from different coffee trees, and the flavor and characteristics of the two kinds of coffee are different. Robusta has higher yield, easier care, stronger disease resistance and lower production cost than Arabica.

Robusta has much higher caffeine than Arabica, at 2.7% and 1.5%, respectively, but contains less sugar. Note that caffeine content has nothing to do with taste, for example, deep-baked Arabica has lower caffeine than lightly roasted robusta. Robusta usually smells earthy (some people think it's charred rubber), with a more bitter taste and less acidity.

For this reason, Robusta is usually used for cheap coffee, such as instant coffee. Robusta accounts for 40% of global coffee production, and the remaining 60% is Arabica. Most of Robusta is produced in Vietnam and is also widely distributed in Brazil, Indonesia, India and Uganda, while production in other areas is very small.

Stephan Katongole is a coffee farmer from Masala district in central Uganda. His company, Coffeeyouknow, produces quality Robusta. Most of Robsta's bad reputation comes from poor agricultural methods at harvest, especially the treatment at harvest, he said.

This begins with improper picking and storage, and many farmers do not completely dry coffee to a moisture content of 11-13%. All these bad habits will affect the final taste of coffee, including sour taste, earthy taste, musty taste and so on. We can improve the cup test quality of Robusta through some simple measures, such as picking only ripe cherries, processing immediately, using suitable dry areas on elevated beds, and good storage.

If you apply the best basic techniques used in dealing with Arabica to Robusta (or make some changes), you will get other flavors that many consumers and bakers have never tasted before. Stephan said that if Robusta is handled well, it can get high cleanliness, bright acidity and unique taste.

The treatment of high-quality Robusta is different from that of traditional quality. After picking coffee cherries, farmers will send them to the cooperative within hours and dry them on a suitable drying bed. Due to the centralized management of this process, the quality of coffee has been improved, coffee cherries can be evenly dried and properly ventilated, and then the beans are graded, selected by color sorter, and finally hand-selected.

Franziska said that the quality of Robusta's cup test could be improved simply by improving harvest and post-harvest technology. She also stressed that the same variety of Robusta can be used for standard quality, commercial quality and excellent quality, but the treatment is different.

The quality of Robusta is also related to altitude, so the high altitude of Ugandan coffee gives unique flavors of hazelnut and milk chocolate, salted caramel and peanut butter, one of which even tastes of citrus fruit and lemon grass. This is a common description of Arabica.

Knowledge: Ethiopia is in the position of meta-ancestor in the coffee industry, is the birthplace of Arabica beans (Arabica), and is currently the largest Arabica producer in Africa. The Kaffa forest in Ethiopia is more known as the "coffee gene bank".

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