Exotic Coffee Cultivars?

Besides coffea arabica and coffea robusta (canefora), there are no other coffee cultivars that are currently in commercial production. All of the varietals we discuss (Typica, Bourbon, Mundo Novo, Maragogype, Catimor, Catuai, Caturra, Variedad Colombia, Pacas, SL-9, Costa Rica 95, Kents, etc. etc. etc.) are all arabica. In botanical terms these would be written as such: coffea arabica var. typica. The one species with the lost potential is perhaps coffea liberica ... and I will be somebody is growing it somewhere, but I have never seen a sample.

There are many other plants in the coffea family: it is a HUGE family. There are many wild types found in Africa, but they are not commercially viable nor do many actually produce a seed as such. But there have been experiments in working with alternative cultivars or cross-breeding wild cultivars with commercial types.

And thusly ... here are a couple photos a friend of a friend brought back from a coffee trip to India:

The Central Coffee Research Institute, established during 1925, is located in the heartland of coffee tracts, near Balehonnnur in Chikmagalur district of Karnataka. This place is coffee geek heavan!!! Around 60 scientific and technical personnel are involved in carrying out research in various disciplines. which ffeatures the research farm pictured here, about 80 hectares are cultivated with coffee The institute also has a well-equipped laboratory facility for research and a central library with a vast collection of books and periodicals on coffee.

One of the most interesting is the purple coffee (!), coffea stenophyla! The long narrow leaf is also very unusual compared to c. arabica and c. robusta cultivars.

This is a picture of Liberica from Zanzibar that I took, pointy, evil-looking coffee eh? This is the character of the Liberica cherry and seed, but admittedly I slected some "extra-pointy" ones for this photo. Below is an image of the Liberica leaf (HUGE!) from an unrelated trip I took. This one was in an experimental coffee garden, so there was only 3 trees there.

I have a bazillion coffee varietal and species photos tucked away in my travelogs, and I hope to complile the images with comments here, or on another page that discusses species, mutations, hybrids and such.

This page is authored by Tom Owen and Sweet Maria's Coffee, Inc. and is not to be copied or reproduced without permission.

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