{ "id": "arabica-varieties", "url": "https://coffearium.org/entries/arabica-varieties/", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "title": "Arabica varieties and their lines", "summary": "Almost all Arabica grown today descends from a few seeds taken from Ethiopia to Yemen. How those seeds became Typica, Bourbon and the rust-resistant and hybrid varieties farmers plant now.", "domain": "botany", "kind": "Concept", "stage": "plant", "topics": [ "history" ], "topicSections": {}, "lang": "en", "status": "verified", "reviewer": "Coffearium verification pass", "lastVerified": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z", "updated": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z", "brief": [ "Arabica comes from Ethiopia. A few seeds taken to Yemen, related to the Bourbon and Typica varieties, became the basis of most Arabica grown worldwide.1,12", "Typica travelled via India and Java to Amsterdam (1706) and the Americas; Bourbon via Réunion to Brazil (mid-19th century) and East Africa.1,3,13", "From the 1920s, the Timor Hybrid brought robusta genes for leaf-rust resistance; Catimors and Sarchimors are groups of varieties, not single varieties.1,3", "F1 hybrids cross distinct Arabica parents for yield, quality and resistance, but their seed does not breed true.1" ], "quickFacts": [ { "label": "Varieties on the map", "value": "69 (World Coffee Research catalogue)" }, { "label": "Old lines", "value": "Typica, Bourbon" }, { "label": "Source of rust resistance", "value": "Timor Hybrid (C. arabica × C. canephora, identified 1927)" }, { "label": "Brazil’s cultivars, genetic base from seven ancestors", "value": "97.55% (121 cultivars, 1939–2009)" } ], "aka": [ "Arabica cultivars", "Coffee varieties" ], "linkTerms": [ "Typica", "Bourbon", "Caturra" ], "related": [ "coffea-genus", "coffee-cherry-anatomy", "the-timor-hybrid", "f1-hybrids", "the-arabica-bottleneck" ], "contested": [ "When Bourbon reached Brazil: a genetic study of Brazilian cultivars gives 1852, from Réunion13; World Coffee Research gives 1860, near Campinas.1", "When Arabica reached Yemen: the Arabica genome study and World Coffee Research place the start of cultivation there in the 15th–16th century3,4; older literature summarised by Anthony et al. ranges from as early as 575 AD to three or four centuries ago.12" ], "corrections": [], "sources": [ { "id": "s1", "title": "History of Arabica", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/arabica-2/history-of-arabica", "tier": "B", "quote": "Recent genetic tests have confirmed that the main seeds taken from Ethiopia to Yemen were related to the Bourbon and Typica varieties. From Yemen, descendants of Bourbon and Typica spread around the world, forming the basis of most modern arabica coffee cultivation.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s2", "title": "Arabica coffee varieties (catalogue of 69 varieties)", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/arabica/varieties", "tier": "A", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s3", "title": "The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars", "authors": "Salojärvi, J.; Rambani, A.; Yu, Z.; Guyot, R.; et al.", "year": 2024, "publisher": "Nature Genetics 56(4), 721–731", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-024-01695-w", "doi": "10.1038/s41588-024-01695-w", "tier": "A", "quote": "We find evidence for a founding polyploidy event 350,000–610,000 years ago, followed by several pre-domestication bottlenecks, resulting in narrow genetic variation. A split between wild accessions and cultivar progenitors occurred ~30.5 thousand years ago, followed by a period of migration between the two populations.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s4", "title": "Typica", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/typica", "tier": "A", "quote": "The Typica group, like all Arabica coffee, is supposed to have originated in southwestern Ethiopia. Sometime in the 15th or 16th century, it was taken to Yemen.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s5", "title": "Caturra", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/caturra", "tier": "A", "quote": "Caturra is a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety. It was discovered on a plantation in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil sometime between 1915 and 1918. Caturra has a single-gene mutation that causes the plant to grow smaller", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s6", "title": "Mundo Novo", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/mundo-novo", "tier": "A", "quote": "Mundo Novo is the result of a natural cross between the Bourbon and Typica varieties found in Mineiros do Tiete, Sao Paulo, Brazil. … The variety was discovered in 1943.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s7", "title": "Catuai", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/catuai", "tier": "A", "quote": "A cross between highly productive Mundo Novo and compact Caturra, made by the Instituto Agronomico (IAC) of Sao Paulo State in Campinas, Brazil. The plant is highly productive compared to Bourbon, in part because of its small size, which allows plants to be closely spaced; it can be planted at nearly double the density.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s8", "title": "Geisha (Panama)", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/geisha-panama", "tier": "A", "quote": "This variety was originally collected from coffee forests in Ethiopia in the 1930s. From there, it was sent to the Lyamungu research station in Tanzania, and then brought to Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Central America in the 1953, where it was logged as accession T2722.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s9", "title": "Ruiru 11", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/ruiru-11", "tier": "A", "quote": "Ruiru 11 owes its existence to a coffee berry disease (CBD) epidemic in 1968 that lead to the loss of 50% of Kenya’s production. … This led to the development of Ruiru 11, which was released in 1985.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s10", "title": "Starmaya", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/starmaya", "tier": "A", "quote": "So far, Starmaya is the only F1 hybrid in the world that professional seed producers can propagate by seed, rather than through costly biotechnology.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s11", "title": "Centroamericano", "authors": "World Coffee Research", "publisher": "World Coffee Research, Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue", "url": "https://varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org/varieties/centroamericano", "tier": "A", "quote": "It was released in 2010 for farmers in Central America.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s12", "title": "The origin of cultivated Coffea arabica L. varieties revealed by AFLP and SSR markers", "authors": "Anthony, F.; Combes, M. C.; Astorga, C.; Bertrand, B.; Graziosi, G.; Lashermes, P.", "year": 2002, "publisher": "Theoretical and Applied Genetics 104, 894–900", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-001-0798-8", "doi": "10.1007/s00122-001-0798-8", "tier": "A", "quote": "The Bourbon genetic base originated from coffee trees introduced from Mocha (Yemen) to the Bourbon Island (now Réunion) in 1715 and 1718 (Haarer 1956).", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s13", "title": "Coefficient of parentage in Coffea arabica L. cultivars grown in Brazil", "authors": "Setotaw, T. A.; Caixeta, E. T.; Pereira, A. A.; Oliveira, A. C. B. de; Cruz, C. D.; Zambolim, E. M.; Zambolim, L.; Sakiyama, N. S.", "year": 2013, "publisher": "Crop Science 53, 1237–1247", "url": "https://www.alice.cnptia.embrapa.br/alice/bitstream/doc/1125279/1/Setotaw-et-al-2013-1.pdf", "doi": "10.2135/cropsci2012.09.0541", "tier": "A", "quote": "It was calculated that 97.55% of the genetic base of the Brazilian C. arabica cultivars is derived from seven ancestors, indicating a narrow genetic base.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s14", "title": "Coffee sustainability in Kenya: role played by improved varieties", "authors": "Gichimu, B. M.", "year": 2014, "publisher": "25th International Conference on Coffee Science (ASIC), Armenia, Colombia", "url": "https://researchgate.net/profile/Bernard-Gichimu/publication/281626727_Coffee_Sustainability_in_Kenya_Role_Played_by_Improved_Varieties/links/55f0746c08ae199d47c2110d/Coffee-Sustainability-in-Kenya-Role-Played-by-Improved-Varieties.pdf", "tier": "B", "quote": "A breeding programme for disease resistance started in 1971 after the outbreak of CBD and CLR in the late 1960s.", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s15", "title": "El origen y las condiciones ambientales para el café arábico (CCRE Documento de Trabajo No. 2)", "authors": "Anzueto, F.", "publisher": "Center for Coffee Research and Education, Borlaug Institute, Texas A&M University", "url": "https://borlaug.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/06/CCRE-Documento-de-Trabajo-No.-2.pdf", "tier": "B", "quote": "La primera introducción que recibió el CATIE (bajo el código T-2722) fue en julio de 1953", "accessed": "2026-10-12T00:00:00.000Z" } ], "markdown": "## A narrow start\n\n*Coffea arabica* is native to Ethiopia, where most of the species’ genetic diversity is found.1 In the 15th or 16th century, coffee was taken from south-western Ethiopia to Yemen and grown there as a crop.4,3 Genetic tests show that the main seeds taken to Yemen were related to the Bourbon and Typica varieties, and their descendants became the basis of most Arabica grown in the world today.1,12\n\nThe species was already narrow before people moved it. Its genome shows several bottlenecks before domestication, which left Arabica with little genetic variation.3 The trip to Yemen and onwards narrowed it again.12 In Brazil, seven ancestors account for 97.55% of the genetic base of the 121 Arabica cultivars released between 1939 and 2009; Bourbon Vermelho alone contributes 52.76%.13\n\n## The lines at a glance\n\nWorld Coffee Research (WCR) sorts the Arabica varieties in its catalogue into genetic groups: Ethiopian landraces, the Bourbon and Typica group, introgressed varieties (Catimors, Sarchimors and others) and F1 hybrids.1,2 The map draws each group as a metro line. Places and dates on the old journeys are stations too. Tap a variety to see what it was bred from and what was bred from it; tap a line name to follow one line. Switch to List for a table you can scan.\n\n
\n\n## Typica: via India and Java\n\nAround 1600, seeds smuggled out of Yemen started the Arabica lineages of India.3 At the end of the 17th century the Dutch sent seeds from the Malabar coast to Batavia (Jakarta) on Java, and the Typica branch probably separated from Bourbon there, not in Yemen as is often told.1,3 In 1706 a single plant went from Java to Amsterdam. That plant gave rise to the Typica variety that spread through the Americas in the 18th century.1,3 A few years later the mayor of Amsterdam gave a plant to Louis XIV, and it was grown in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.1\n\nFrom Amsterdam, plants went to Suriname, Cayenne and northern Brazil, which received its first coffee seed in 1727; from Paris to Martinique, starting Caribbean cultivation in 1723, and from there to Jamaica and other islands.1,3,13 For a long time most plantations in Central America grew Typica. Being low-yielding and very susceptible to the main coffee diseases, it was gradually replaced by Bourbon varieties, but is still widely planted in Peru, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.1\n\n## Bourbon: via Réunion\n\nThe French brought coffee from Yemen to Bourbon Island, now Réunion, in three attempts in 1708, 1715 and 1718; none of the first introduction survived, and the Bourbon group descends from a single plant that survived by 1720.1,12,3 Bourbon coffee did not leave the island until the mid-19th century, when it reached southern Brazil and spread north into Central America.1,13\n\nIn East Africa, French Spiritan missionaries planted seed from Réunion at their missions in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, and Bura, Kenya. Seedlings from Bura were taken to the mission at Saint Austin near Nairobi and given to settlers: the origin of “French Mission” coffee.1 In Kenya, the Scott Agricultural Laboratories selected single trees in the 1930s: SL34 comes from a tree labelled “French Mission”, SL28 from a selection of “Tanganika Drought Resistant”.2,14\n\n## Dwarfs and crosses\n\nSmall, compact plants can be planted closer together. Caturra, found in Minas Gerais, Brazil, between 1915 and 1918, is a natural Bourbon mutant whose small size comes from a single gene.5 Villa Sarchi (Costa Rica) and Pacas (El Salvador) are similar Bourbon mutants.2\n\nTypica and Bourbon also crossed. Mundo Novo, discovered in Brazil in 1943, is a natural cross of the two.6 Crossing Mundo Novo with Caturra gave Catuai, which can be planted at nearly double the density of Bourbon.7 Pacamara is a cross of Pacas with Maragogipe, a natural Typica mutant.2\n\n## Rust and the Timor Hybrid\n\nIn the 1920s a *C. arabica* and a *C. canephora* (robusta) plant crossed naturally on the island of Timor; the hybrid was identified in 1927.1,3 The resulting Timor Hybrid carries robusta genes that let it resist coffee leaf rust. Breeders selected many Timor Hybrid lines and crossed them, most often with Caturra and Villa Sarchi.1 These crosses gave the two main groups of introgressed Arabica: Catimors (Timor Hybrid × Caturra) and Sarchimors (Timor Hybrid × Villa Sarchi). Neither is a single variety; each is a group of many varieties with similar parentage.1\n\nIntrogressed varieties have traditionally been linked with lower cup quality, but they have been essential where leaf rust and coffee berry disease threaten farms.1,3 Their protection is wearing off: some formerly resistant varieties such as Lempira in Honduras and Costa Rica 95 in Costa Rica have been infected. Because most of them owe their resistance to the same parent, most experts expect existing rust-resistant varieties to lose it in the near to medium term.1\n\n## F1 hybrids\n\nF1 hybrids are the first-generation offspring of two genetically distinct Arabica parents, bred to combine high cup quality, high yield and disease resistance; they tend to yield much more than other varieties.1 Centroamericano, a cross of the Sarchimor T5296 with the landrace Rume Sudan released in 2010, gave 22–47% more coffee than standard Central American varieties in breeding trials.11\n\nSeed from an F1 plant does not breed true: the next generation loses some of its yield, resistance or quality. F1 hybrids are therefore multiplied as clones and bought from trusted nurseries.1 Starmaya is so far the only F1 hybrid that seed producers can propagate by seed.10\n\n\n\n## Ethiopian landraces outside the bottleneck\n\nA landrace is a traditional, locally adapted variety shaped by its environment and by isolation. In coffee, most landraces come from the Ethiopian forests and are generally associated with very high cup quality and lower yields.1 Because they were collected directly in Ethiopia, they sit outside the Yemen bottleneck.3 Geisha is the best-known: collected in Ethiopian forests in the 1930s, sent to the Lyamungu station in Tanzania and then to CATIE in Costa Rica in 1953, where it was logged as accession T2722.8,15 Wild Ethiopian accessions in the CATIE collection are also the second parent of many F1 hybrids.2\n\n## What the genomes show\n\nGenome sequencing of wild and cultivated Arabica finds a split between wild accessions and the ancestors of cultivars about 30,500 years ago, followed by a period of gene flow between the two.3 The same study traces the breeding history of modern varieties, including lines with robusta introgression, and points to regions of the genome that may contribute to disease resistance.3 Earlier marker studies found very little variation within the Typica and Bourbon genetic bases, and much more among wild Ethiopian accessions.12\n\n## The lines compared\n\nThe table counts how WCR rates the varieties on each line of the map. These are WCR’s catalogue ratings, given variety by variety; quality potential is rated at high altitude.2,4\n\n| Line | Varieties | Dwarf or compact | Highly rust resistant | Quality potential very good or exceptional | Yield potential high or very high |\n|---|---|---|---|---|---|\n| Ethiopian landraces | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |\n| Typica | 11 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 2 |\n| Bourbon × Typica | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |\n| Bourbon | 12 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 2 |\n| Catimor | 11 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 9 |\n| Sarchimor | 11 | 11 | 3 | 3 | 6 |\n| Other introgressed | 7 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 6 |\n| F1 hybrids | 11 | 11 | 6 | 10 | 11 |\n\nOur tally of the 69 Arabica varieties in the WCR catalogue, grouped as on the map.2\n\n## How breeding answered crises\n\nDisease has driven most new lines. Leaf rust drove the Timor Hybrid programmes.1 In Kenya, a coffee berry disease epidemic in 1968 cost half the country’s production and started the breeding programme at Ruiru that released Ruiru 11 in 1985.9,14\n\n## Reading the catalogue\n\nThe map follows WCR’s genetic groups. A few varieties are placed by their stated background rather than a known pedigree: varieties described as having a “Bourbon-like” or “Typica-like” genetic background sit on those lines without a direct link. Parent stations drawn with a dashed ring, such as Kent or Rume Sudan, are named as parents in the catalogue but are not catalogued as varieties themselves.2\n\n## Key studies\n\n
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World Coffee Research – Arabica varieties catalogue. A public catalogue of Arabica and robusta varieties with their lineage, breeders and agronomic traits, written for producers choosing what to plant. Its history pages trace the routes of Typica and Bourbon and explain the introgressed and F1 groups.

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World Coffee Research · varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org

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Anthony et al., 2002 – Where cultivated Arabica came from. Compared Typica- and Bourbon-derived accessions, cultivars from Yemen and wild accessions from Ethiopia with AFLP and SSR markers. The cultivated material carried almost no markers absent from the wild accessions, and variation within each genetic base was very low, in line with the historical record of a few founding plants.

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Theoretical and Applied Genetics 104, 894–900 · doi:10.1007/s00122-001-0798-8

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Setotaw et al., 2013 – Brazil’s narrow base. Traced the pedigrees of 121 Arabica cultivars released in Brazil from 1939 to 2009 back to 13 ancestors. Seven of them make up almost the whole genetic base, led by Bourbon Vermelho, Sumatra and the Timor Hybrid.

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Crop Science 53, 1237–1247 · doi:10.2135/cropsci2012.09.0541

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Salojärvi et al., 2024 – The Arabica genome. Assembles the genomes of Arabica and its two parent species, dates the hybrid origin of Arabica and the bottlenecks that followed, and reconstructs how modern cultivars, including robusta-introgressed lines, were bred.

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Nature Genetics 56(4), 721–731 · doi:10.1038/s41588-024-01695-w

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