57% of coffee consumed worldwide comes from the Arabica plant. Arabica coffee is often mentioned as the counterpart to Robusta and is thus always being compared. Time to focus solely on Arabica and go on a search for clues.
Where does Arabica coffee come from?
Today, Arabica coffee is grown in approximately 60 countries. Originally, the plant 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 region of origin 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 genetics of the plant which region the first Arabica plants came from.
The high genetic diversity extends over 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 cultivated for economic use, did people switch to intensive cultivation in densely planted plots.
The conversion from mixed cultivation 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 danced afterward, 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 the Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné was mistaken. He was the first researcher 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 Arabian region.
The Ottomans conquered the Yemeni highlands in 1530 and began coffee production in 1570. Coffee then reached the European metropolises of Amsterdam and London via the port of Mokha (al-Muchaa). The port of Mokha held a monopoly on global coffee trade, and most of the coffee produced at the time came from the Yemeni highlands.
"Mokha" was therefore the name for the coffee drunk in European metropolises. The first European traders appeared in Mokha around 1610 and brought coffee with the same name "from the Arabs" - Carl von Linné could not have known better and associated the coffee with an Arabian background, calling it coffea arabica from then on.
(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. What it will be like in 2050, we discuss here.
In the coffee belt are coffee-producing 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 level, but for the local economy and tradition, they sometimes play a major role. In Burundi, for example, coffee was long responsible for 80% of foreign exchange inflow.
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 of global coffee volume?
The opinion still prevails in many places that Arabica accounts for 70% of global coffee supply, and 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 will 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 - accounts for dry-processed Naturals from Brazil. Brazil thus produces almost as much Arabica coffee as places 2-10 combined (see table above).
What does Arabica coffee taste like?
Somewhat "traditionally," the taste of Arabica coffee is always viewed in comparison with Robusta coffee - but does that even make sense? Both are coffee species, but red wine is not compared with white wine, just as apples are not compared with pears and plums with apricots.
The species alone hardly justifies a sensory comparison. In addition, Arabica coffees undergo such a dramatic flavor transformation depending on post-harvest processing that they can hardly be assigned sensorily to a region anymore.
Certainly, there are certain commonalities among country and regional profiles that suggest the origin of the coffee, but the same applies here: no rule without exception.
How coffees are affected in taste through fermentation, we discuss 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 flavor wheel.
From chocolatey-nutty coffee from Brazil, to citrusy-balanced washed coffees from Central America, to floral-fruity coffees from Ethiopia to nutty-citrusy coffees in India and herbal-heavy coffees in Indonesia - as crude as this categorization may sound, so often does it hold up to reality, even though we are repeatedly surprised by how little uniform such taste concepts 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 not 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 equally not responsible for it, nor is 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 powers.
The pyramid shows how important care and processing are and form a basis for what makes the coffee appear 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 packaging is labeled "100% Arabica," which first does not do justice to the complexity of the product, second provides no added value of information, and third leaves coffee drinkers in ignorance.
The distinction by species alone is also no longer timely. The coffee plant is subject to climate change, and so we should expand our vocabulary to understand and describe the coffee of the future. Varieties and new cultivars are becoming increasingly important, so that in the future we should increasingly speak about varieties rather than species.
Researchers have been intensively engaged for years in bringing new crossings from the laboratory into the field and scaling them. The reduced distinction between Arabica and non-Arabica (e.g., Robusta) falls far short here.
