List of coffee varieties
While there is tremendous variability encountered in both wild and cultivated coffee plants, there are a few varieties and cultivars that are commercially important due to various unique and inherent traits such as disease resistance and fruit yield.
Therefore, at a micro level, breed selection is critical to the success of a producer and is one of the key components of cup quality.
For the sake of clarity, within this article the terms will be used in accordance with loose guidelines put forth by the Specialty Coffee Association of America: Variety: This rank of taxa delineates differences between plants that are smaller than in subspecies but larger than forms.
Before the end of the 19th century, arabica was indeed the exclusive producer of all coffee in the world,[5]: 48 but the first documented outbreak of coffee leaf rust (CLR) disease decimated crops around the world, prompting many farmers to explore alternative crops.
[7] Prior to the mid-1900s, arabica coffee breeding involved simple line selection with an emphasis mostly on favorable adaptation to local growing conditions, fruit yield, and cup quality.
But in the late 1970s and 1980s, various countries started breeding programs designed to create cultivars resistant to CLR.
The results of these and other breeding programs have produced a number of important cultivars worth mentioning (see list below).
[12] While not separate varieties of bean, unusual and very expensive robustas are the Indonesian kopi luwak and the Philippine Kapéng Alamid and Kahawa Kubing.
[13] The beans are collected from the droppings of the common palm civet, whose digestive processes give it a distinctive flavor.
It was introduced during the period of Spanish colonization and the Philippines quickly rose to become the 4th largest producer of coffee in the early 19th century.
Previously stenophylla had not been seen in the wild since 1954, but in December 2018 Professor Jeremy Haggar, of the University of Greenwich, and Dr Aaron Davis of Kew Gardens travelled to the forests of Sierra Leone to seek it out.
