What's included

What’s includ­ed

This cat­a­log cov­ers vari­eties from the two species of cof­fee plants that are in wide cul­ti­va­tion glob­al­ly—C. ara­bi­ca (known as Ara­bi­ca), and C. canepho­ra (known as Robusta).

Ara­bi­ca

Ara­bi­ca is the dom­i­nant species in Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca and much of east Africa, and is con­sid­ered to pro­duce the high­est cup qual­i­ty. The Ara­bi­ca species is made up of many vari­eties or cul­ti­vars — dis­tinct types that are able to sex­u­al­ly repro­duce with one another.

Robus­ta

Robus­ta is the sec­ond-most com­mon­ly grown cof­fee species; its com­mer­cial impor­tance has grown steadi­ly over the last cen­tu­ry and it now accounts for approx­i­mate­ly 40% of glob­al pro­duc­tion. The genet­ic diver­si­ty of robus­ta cof­fee is much larg­er than that of ara­bi­ca, and it is only just begin­ning to be explored by breed­ers and the indus­try alike.

Vari­eties scope

The vari­eties in this cat­a­log have been select­ed for inclu­sion because of their eco­nom­ic, his­tor­i­cal, cul­tur­al, or genet­ic impor­tance to the glob­al cul­ti­va­tion of cof­fee. World Cof­fee Research con­sult­ed wide­ly with nation­al cof­fee insti­tu­tions, breed­ers, researchers, and cof­fee com­pa­nies from across the world to make these selections.

Because the cat­a­log is meant to be a prac­ti­cal tool and guide for cof­fee pro­duc­ers, it does not aim to rep­re­sent an exhaus­tive list of all cof­fee vari­eties in exis­tence. The vari­eties includ­ed here have been select­ed or devel­oped by farm­ers and breed­ers pri­mar­i­ly over the last cen­tu­ry, although the domes­ti­ca­tion of cof­fee began at least 500 years ago.

Def­i­n­i­tion of a variety

To be con­sid­ered for inclu­sion in this cat­a­log, vari­eties must meet the fol­low­ing stan­dards (based on the def­i­n­i­tion of a vari­ety as giv­en by the Inter­na­tion­al Union for the Pro­tec­tion of New Vari­eties of Plants (UPOV):

• The vari­ety is dis­tinct. It is dis­tin­guish­able from oth­er vari­eties based on the above set of characteristics.
• The vari­ety is uni­form. It can be pre­cise­ly described by a set of char­ac­ter­is­tics and all the plants of this type look the same.
• The vari­ety is sta­ble. The vari­ety can be repro­duced in such a man­ner that its char­ac­ter­is­tics are unchanged in the next generation.

Note: There is some excep­tion to the above rule of thumb. Some cof­fees includ­ed in this cat­a­log — T5175, T5296, Anacafe 14, and Paca­ma­ra — do not meet the above def­i­n­i­tion because they are nei­ther uni­form nor sta­ble from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. They are includ­ed here because they are com­mon­ly known to farm­ers and grown wide­ly in their respec­tive regions, but it’s impor­tant to know they lack uni­for­mi­ty and sta­bil­i­ty and there­fore do not meet the def­i­n­i­tion of vari­ety laid out here.

Geo­graph­i­cal scope

Ara­bi­ca

The cur­rent ver­sion of the ara­bi­ca cat­a­log cov­ers the most impor­tant cof­fee vari­eties in the 15 coun­tries list­ed below. Many vari­eties in this cat­a­log are also found in coun­tries not list­ed below.

• Cos­ta Rica
• El Sal­vador
• Guatemala
• Hon­duras
• Jamaica
• Kenya
• Malawi
• Nicaragua
• Pana­ma
• Perú
• Repúbli­ca Dominicana
• Rwan­da
• Ugan­da
• Zam­bia
• Zim­bab­we

Robus­ta

The cur­rent ver­sion of the cat­a­log cov­ers impor­tant robus­ta vari­eties in the 8 coun­tries list­ed below.

• Brazil
• Mex­i­co
• Ugan­da
• Indone­sia
• Viet­nam
• India
• Thai­land
• Philip­pines