57% of coffee consumed worldwide comes from the Arabica plant. Arabica coffee is often mentioned as the counterpart to Robusta and is thus always compared. Time to focus solely on Arabica and go on a search for its origins.
Where does Arabica coffee come from?
Today, Arabica coffee is grown in approximately 60 countries. The plant originally comes from the Boma region, which is located in the far east of South Sudan, on the border with Ethiopia (Open Street Map)
Today's Ethiopia and former Abyssinia was long considered the origin region for the Arabica plant. The high plateaus reach 1,300 to 2,000 meters above sea level. In 2021, scientists led by Aaron Davies discovered through research into the plant's genetics which region the first Arabica plants came from.
The high genetic diversity extends hundreds of kilometers westward into the Congo basin. Coffee originally comes from forests and is accustomed to the proximity of trees - to this day.
Only later, when coffee was planted for economic use, did people switch to intensive cultivation in densely planted plots.
The conversion from mixed to monoculture favored the spread of plant diseases, such as the notorious coffee rust, or roya.
Many myths surround the discovery of coffee - whether it was goats that first ate coffee cherries and then danced, whether it was a monk, a prophet, or someone else, will never be conclusively proven.
Why is it called Arabica coffee?
Arabica coffee is called that because Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné was mistaken. He was the first scientist to botanically classify "Arabica" coffee and thus established the foundation for modern botanical and zoological taxonomy.
He called the beans "Arabica" coffee because in Central Europe in the early 1700s, there was an association between coffee and the Arab world.
The Ottomans conquered the Yemenite highlands in 1530 and began coffee production in 1570. After that, coffee reached the European metropolises Amsterdam and London via the port of Mocha (al-Muchaa). The port of Mocha held the monopoly on global coffee trade, and most of the coffee produced at that time came from the Yemenite highlands.
"Mocha" was therefore the term for the coffee that was drunk in European metropolises. The first European traders appeared in Mocha around 1610 and brought the eponymous coffee "from the Arabs" with them - Carl von Linné could not have known better and associated the coffee with the Arab background and subsequently called it coffea arabica.
(Sources: Ted Fisher, "Making Better Coffee" and Stuart McCook, " (Fisher, McCook "Coffee is not forever")
Where does Arabica coffee grow today?
Today, coffee is grown in approximately 60 countries, all of which are located in the so-called coffee belt around the equator. Between 23° north and 25° south of the equator, there are - today - semi-stable weather patterns that favor coffee cultivation. We discuss what it will be like in 2050 here.
In the coffee belt are coffee countries such as Ivory Coast, Australia, Cape Verde, and China - who would have thought of them first? In terms of volume, these countries, except China, are of little significance on a global scale, but for local economies and traditions, they sometimes play a major role. In Burundi, for example, coffee was long responsible for 80% of foreign exchange inflows.
Brazil was, is, and remains by far the largest producer of Arabica coffee and produces almost four times as much coffee as Colombia in the 2023/24 season. In Honduras, coffee production is growing, making the country the largest producer of Arabica coffee in Central America.
In Peru and Mexico, a great deal of double-certified Fairtrade-Organic coffee is produced, while in Nicaragua volumes have been shrinking for several years. China now appears among the top ten, after growth has increased by up to 15% annually since 2015.
What is the share of Arabica coffee in global coffee volume?
It is still widely believed that Arabica accounts for 70% of global coffee supply, while Canephora (Robusta) plays a minor role with 30%. This is wrong.
In the 2023/24 season, approximately 102.2 million 60kg bags of Arabica coffee are expected to be produced and 75.8 million bags of Robusta coffee. This is a ratio of 57.4% to 42.6% out of a total of 178 million 60kg bags of coffee produced, Arabica and Robusta combined.
57.4% of global coffee supply in the 2023/24 season is Arabica, 42.6% is Robusta.
33.2% of globally produced coffee - Arabica and Robusta combined - comes from dry processed Naturals from Brazil. Brazil thus produces almost as much Arabica coffee as positions 2-10 combined (see table above).
How does Arabica coffee taste?
Somewhat "traditionally," the taste of Arabica coffee is always viewed in relation to Robusta coffee - but does that even make sense? Both are coffee varieties, but red wine is not compared with white wine, nor apples with pears, nor plums with apricots.
The variety alone hardly justifies a sensory comparison. Additionally, Arabica coffees undergo such a strong flavor transformation depending on the post-harvest process or processing that they can barely be attributed to a region based on their sensory profile.
Certainly, there are certain commonalities in country and regional profiles that allow conclusions about the origin of the coffee, but here too: no rule without exception.
How coffees are influenced in taste through fermentation is discussed in this video.
In general, however, it can be said about Arabica coffees that they can be extremely diverse in taste, which is also reflected in the common aroma wheel.
From the chocolatey-nutty coffee from Brazil, to the citrusy-balanced washed coffees from Central America, to the floral-fruity coffees from Ethiopia, to the nutty-citrusy coffees in India, and the herbal-heavy coffees in Indonesia - as crude as this categorization may sound, it often holds up to reality, even though we are repeatedly surprised by how little uniform such flavor profiles are.
What does it take for high-quality Arabica coffee?
Arabica coffee is per se not a guarantee of good taste, although that is often implied to this day ("100% Arabica"). It is equally little an indication of how the coffee will taste, as it depends on the following five criteria: care, processing, temperatures, variety, and growing conditions.
The basis for quality Arabica as well as Robusta coffee is care. The difficult-to-define and much more mystifying than explanatory "terroir" is just as little responsible for it as a microclimate that is not naturally given.
Good coffee is a human-made product and not a whim of nature or a result of higher forces.
The pyramid shows how important care and processing are and form a basis for what makes the coffee already seem good to very good. The factors of temperature, variety, and microclimate/growing conditions then further separate the very good from the good coffees.
100% Arabica coffee: what's the deal?
Even today, coffee packages are labeled "100% Arabica," which firstly does not do justice to the complexity of the product, secondly provides no added informational value, and thirdly leaves coffee drinkers in ignorance.
The distinction by variety alone is also no longer up-to-date. The coffee plant is subject to climate change and so we should expand our vocabulary in order to understand and describe the coffee of the future. Varieties and new breeding strains are becoming increasingly important, so in the future we should speak more about varieties rather than varieties.
Researchers have been intensively working for years to bring new crosses from the laboratory into the field and scale them. The reduced distinction between Arabica and non-Arabica (e.g., Robusta) falls far short here.
