If you’ve been in the specialty coffee industry for any length of time, you likely have at least some familiarity with coffee bean varieties. Popular varieties like Catuai, Caturra, and even the prized Gesha are best known for their impact on coffee flavor profiles. But did you know that varieties actually play a very important role in coffee production as well? Evan Kluender discusses the characteristics and history of the most common and popular coffee bean varieties to help you better understand the crucial role they play in the world of specialty coffee.

What are coffee bean varieties?
First and foremost, what exactly is a variety? By definition, a variety is a naturally occurring genetic variation of a species. In plain English, the main coffee species grown worldwide are arabica and robusta. Within each species, there is a subspecies of coffee known as varieties. It’s like apples in the grocery store—red delicious, gala, and green apples all have unique characteristics that set them apart, yet all three are grown on different varieties of an apple tree.
Coffee has been cultivated for many centuries. Over the years, it has undergone a multitude of natural mutations. Plus, it was eventually propagated by humanity to develop new varieties, called cultivars. For the purposes of this article, we will primarily talk about arabica varieties. Diving into some of the most common coffee varieties will illustrate the role they play and allow you to better understand their place in the world.
Common Coffee Varieties

Typica
Typica is the oldest coffee variety in the world and the parent of many modern arabica varieties. It’s widely believed that typica was discovered circa 9th century in Ethiopia before being brought to Yemen to be cultivated as a crop for the first time. Typica is an interesting tree. While it’s prized for producing excellent quality coffee, it’s not the most efficient tree on Earth. These trees are characterized by their tall height, low fruit yield, susceptibility to disease, and resistance to the cold weather climates at high altitudes.

Bourbon
Similar to Typica, Bourbon is one of the first descendants of the original arabica trees. In the early 18th century, the French brought arabica trees to a territory known as Bourbon Island (known as Reunion Island today) where the trees took to their new environment incredibly well. Furthermore, French missionaries from Bourbon Island are largely credited with spreading Bourbon seeds and trees throughout the world, most notably in South and Central America.
Bourbon is an extremely important variety because it preceded many of today’s common varieties. Like Typica, it’s categorized by its tall height, great cup quality, and susceptibility to disease. However, it grows more easily in warm weather climates.

Caturra
Caturra was discovered in early 20th century Brazil as a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety. In this case, a single gene mutated and resulted in these trees developing dwarfism. In turn, this made for a very advantageous trait for coffee farmers. These trees grew smaller with a higher number of branches, allowing farmers to plant them closer together while simultaneously achieving higher yields. The variety was quickly picked up and selectively bred by agronomists at coffee institutes, largely taking the place of Bourbon in the latter half of the century. Today, Caturra is one of the most grown varieties in South and Central America. The variety is known for its small footprint, high cup quality, and good fruit yields.

Mundo Novo
Mundo Novo was discovered in Brazil in the 1940s. Unlike Caturra, this variety was not created from a genetic mutation, but a hybridization between Typica and Bourbon. As a result, the trees grew tall and maintained many of the traits from the parent varieties. However, these trees were exceptionally high yielding.
Given the popularity of dwarf varieties in Central America after the discovery of Caturra, Mundo Novo was largely rejected by farmers outside of South America in favor of shorter varieties. That being said, it became a mainstay in Brazil and is still grown today due to its high productivity.

Catuai
Catuai is the first example on this list of a propagated variety, or a cultivar. This means that it was “designed” by agronomists through grafting and selective breeding. It was created by the Instituto Agronimo in Sao Paolo in 1949 as a hybrid of Caturra and Mundo Novo. Each was chosen for its positive attributes that could be advantageous for farmers. This cultivar combines the dwarfism of Caturra with the high productivity of Mundo Novo. The combination created a high-yielding tree that takes up very little space, allowing for denser planting. For obvious reasons, Catuai became extremely popular with farmers and quickly spread throughout South and Central America. In fact, there was a time when the cultivar actually represented about 50% of arabica grown worldwide.

Timor Hybrid
In a bit of a departure from the rest of this article, Timor Hybrid isn’t 100% arabica—it’s actually an introgressed cultivar made of Typica and robusta. Robusta coffee is known for its heavy, savory flavor profile, but its importance really lies in the fact that robusta trees are significantly easier to grow than arabica ones. This cultivar was first developed on the Indonesian island of Timor as a way of introducing robusta’s hardiness with the sweet flavor of arabica.
Today, Timor Hybrid isn’t very common outside of Indonesia. However, we see its descendants all over the world in varieties like Catimor, a cross between Caturra and Timor Hybrid. Catimor was selectively bred to combine the stature, flavor, and yields of Caturra with the disease resistance of Timor Hybrid to create a highly productive and hardy tree.
Final Thoughts on Coffee Bean Varieties
By following the history of coffee varieties, we can see how trees have evolved over time. We can also see how farmers and agronomists have used different varieties to further improve coffee production worldwide. Over the last 70 years or so, coffee has been further hybridized and experimented with, leading to new varieties and cultivars that make coffee adaptable to more environments. There have even been cases where coffee varieties are prized for sacrificing productivity to maximize quality, like with Gesha. It’s an incredibly difficult arabica tree to grow with low yields. However, the high concentration of nutrients in each cherry leads to some of the most flavorful coffee on Earth.

Because coffee so easily mutates and hybridizes, unique varieties constantly pop up all over the world. Many of these are intentionally developed, but some of them are unknown even to the farmers who grow them. In the face of changing climates and resource depletion, farmers have been able to utilize varieties old and new to maintain their crop quality. They can also better their livelihoods by virtue of being able to grow higher quality coffee that fetches higher premiums. As modern technology has allowed agronomists (and us, in turn!) to understand coffee genetics at a deeper level than ever before, there’s no foreseeable end to the innovations improving coffee every day.