The bean is to coffee what the grape is to wine.
If you want to become coffee’s equivalent of the world’s wine tasting experts, you had better know beans.
There are two broad categories of coffee bean. The older, and the one which almost certainly started all the fuss, is the Arabica bean. The Arabica bean is native to southwest Ethiopia, including the Kaffa region–“Kaffa” possibly, through the centuries, having evolved into “coffee”.
Arabica beans, while more disease-prone, with their intense flavors, are considered the aristocrat of the species. You may know them by the names “Mocha” and “Java”, which were two of the early ports, in Yemen and Indonesia, from which they were exported. Java conjures images of the mighty volcano Krakatoa, and Mocha, of sunlight on the Red Sea.
The second category of bean, robusta, is, as its name suggests, not as refined as its Arabica relatives. But, with 40-50% higher caffeine content, it has its merits. It can be cultivated in places where Arabica would curl up and die, and so provides an inexpensive addition to coffee blends.
You may have had coffee with an undeniable aroma of burning rubber. That was the robusta bean at work. It makes no pretensions to subtle flavor, but when added to an espresso blend, will improve the “head”, and lower the price.
And some roasters will even expose the robusta beans to steaming, in an effort to leach out their bitterness so they can be sold in the mass market blends like Maxwell House and Folger’s.
Do the beans really matter? The Green Mountain Coffee Roaster’s site would have you think so:
“The cup turns gently from blackberry to ripe mango, then dips seductively into ginger, lime and milk chocolate. An intensely floral aroma floats above lemon notes that reveal this beauty s true nature…”
The bean? 2006 Hacienda La Esmeralda Geisha, with an Ethiopian Arabica pedigree, now thriving in the lush Panamanian highlands. Not a drop of robusta in its blood.
So learn your beans, develop your palate, and open you wallet. Esmeralda Geisha 2006 retails for $100 per pound.
