Getting Started with Specialty Coffee - Pt. 2
Coffee - the plant
In a strictly literal sense, brewing coffee is the steeping of a roasted seed harvested from a plant in the genus coffea. This genus contains several cultivated species, most commonly coffea arabica and coffea canephora, known as Arabica and Robusta respectively. Rarer are species such as stenophylla, liberica, and eugenioides, but coffea contains over 120 known species.
Historically, Robusta has been the staple of coffee consumption world-wide due to the higher yield, easier cultivation, and climate-tolerant genetics. However, the more recent cultivation and trade of Arabica has swept the coffee market, now representing roughly 60% of all coffee sale.
Arabica has gained dominance due to several factors, but the most pertinant is its quality in the cup. It is generally sweeter and more complex, with higher acidity and lower body than Robusta. As the specialty market moved away from intense italian-style dark roasted coffee, Arabica found the spotlight as the industry’s superstar. Within the last decade or so, a small portion of the market has been working to re-introduce higher quality robusta.