Origins and terroirs
All the origins and terroirs questions gathered here, each with a quick answer. Click any one for the full entry. 65 questions.
What are typical African coffee profiles?
African coffees are recognised for a lively acidity, often floral and fruity aromatics, a light to medium body, and striking complexity. Each producing country, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Ugan
Why does altitude influence coffee quality?
Altitude matters because it lowers the mean temperature, slows cherry ripening, increases bean density, and concentrates acids, sugars and aromatic precursors. From about 1,200 metres and upwards (SHB
What is Antigua coffee in Guatemala?
Antigua is Guatemala's most renowned coffee region, set in a valley surrounded by three active volcanoes, Agua, Fuego and Acatenango, at approximately 1,500 metres altitude. Its fertile volcanic soi
What is Antioquia coffee region?
Antioquia is Colombia's most populous department and one of its most important coffee producers, with approximately 120,000 coffee-farming families across more than 130,000 hectares. The historic hear
What are typical Asia-Pacific coffee profiles?
Asia-Pacific coffees, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Papua New Guinea, Timor, stand out for a generally heavy body, low to moderate acidity, and an aromatic palette built around earth, wood, spice and c
What is Balinese Kintamani coffee?
Kintamani coffee is an Arabica produced on the slopes of Batur volcano in the Kintamani district in northern Bali, Indonesia, at altitudes of 900 to 1,700 metres. It is remarkable for its citrus and f
What is Bolivian coffee?
Bolivia's coffee comes almost entirely from the Yungas region, a dramatic transition zone between the high Andean plateau and the Amazon basin.
What is Boquete coffee in Panama?
Boquete is a small mountain town in Panama's Chiriquí province, which became the world epicentre of premium specialty coffee following the revelation of the Geisha variety in the 2000s. Its exceptiona
What is Brazilian coffee?
Brazil has been the world's largest coffee producer since 1840: around 3.5 million tonnes a year, or 35-40 % of all coffee on the planet. Grown at medium altitudes (800-1,300 m) in the south-eastern s
What is Burundian coffee?
Burundian coffee is a washed high-grown Arabica farmed across the central and northern hills of the country, between 1,400 and 2,000 metres. Almost entirely Bourbon and its descendants, it cups close
What is Cauca coffee region in Colombia?
Cauca is a department in south-western Colombia, located at 1,700 to 2,200 metres, known for balanced and complex coffees with malic acidity (green apple) and notes of caramel, hazelnut and citrus. Lo
What are typical Central American coffee profiles?
Central American coffees, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, are broadly balanced, with medium body, soft apple or citrus acidity, and a palette dominated by chocolate
What is Cerrado Mineiro in Brazil?
Cerrado Mineiro is a coffee region in the north-western part of Minas Gerais state in Brazil, recognised as the country's first Geographical Indication (GI) for coffee in 2005. Its flat plateau, well-
What is Chinese Yunnan coffee?
Coffee arrived in Yunnan in the 1950s as part of a government-led program to develop export crops. The variety of choice was Catimor, a disease-resistant.
How to choose a coffee origin by taste preference?
To choose a coffee origin by taste, first identify your preferred flavour profile: fruity-acidic (Ethiopia, Kenya), sweet-balanced (Colombia, Guatemala), or soft-chocolaty (Brazil, Mexico). The proces
What is a coffee micro-lot?
A coffee micro-lot is a batch of green coffee sourced from a single plot, a specific group of producers, or a distinct fermentation process, in limited quantity, typically between 100 and 1,000 kg of
What is terroir in coffee?
A coffee's terroir is the full set of natural and cultural conditions that shape the bean: soil (minerals, drainage, pH), altitude, climate (temperature, rainfall, wind), sun exposure, variety, and hu
What is Colombian coffee?
Colombia is the world's third-largest coffee producer and the second-largest Arabica producer, at around 12 million 60-kg bags per year. Grown across three Andean ranges at 1,200-2,100 m and mostly wa
What is Costa Rica Tarrazú coffee?
Tarrazú is a mountainous region in the south of Costa Rica's central valley, at 1,200-2,000 m altitude, widely considered the country's most prestigious coffee terroir. Its Arabica coffees (Caturra, C
What is Ecuadorian coffee?
Ecuador grows coffee in three distinct agroclimatic zones. The Pacific coast, dominated by the Manabí province, produces the bulk of national output, a.
What are emerging micro-regions in Rwanda?
Rwanda is one of East Africa's fastest-developing coffee terroirs in terms of quality since the 2000s. Beyond historically recognised zones such as Nyamasheke and Musasa, emerging micro-regions like H
Why is Ethiopia considered the birthplace of coffee?
Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of coffee because it is the only country where Coffea arabica grows wild in natural forests, chiefly in the Kaffa, Jimma and Bale regions. Every Arabica variety
What is Ethiopian coffee known for?
Ethiopia is the biological and historical cradle of Coffea arabica, the species still grows wild in its south-western forests. The country produces around 450,000 tonnes per year, mostly on smallhold
What is Finca La Palma y El Tucán known for?
La Palma y El Tucán is a Colombian specialty coffee estate internationally recognised as one of the most advanced centres for fermentation innovation and varietal development. Located in Cundinamarca
What is Galapagos Islands coffee?
Galapagos coffee is one of the rarest and most geographically distinctive coffee productions in the world. Grown exclusively on the island of San Cristóbal in Ecuador's Galapagos archipelago, it benef
What is the difference between Panamanian and Ethiopian Geisha?
Panamanian Geisha and Ethiopian Gesha share the same genetic origin, the Gesha variety collected in Ethiopia in 1931, but express different sensory profiles owing to their respective terroirs, altit
What is Gesha Village estate in Ethiopia?
Gesha Village is a high-altitude specialty coffee estate (1,900-2,200 m) located in the Bench Sheko zone of south-western Ethiopia. Founded in 2011 by a team of passionate investors on montane forest
What is Guatemalan coffee?
Guatemala produces around 200,000 tonnes of coffee per year on high-altitude volcanic soils (1,300-2,000 m), with eight distinct regions formally codified by Anacafé. Its coffees, mostly washed, are m
What is Guji coffee?
Guji is a zone in southern Ethiopia, in the Oromia region, commercially split from neighbouring Sidamo during the 2010s. Its high altitudes (1,800-2,300 m), red volcanic soils and micro-lot naturals h
What is Haitian coffee's potential?
Haiti has one of the richest and most tragic coffee histories in the Caribbean. Once the world's largest coffee exporter in the 18th century, the country today produces coffee grown 100 % by smallhold
What is Harrar coffee?
Harrar is an Ethiopian coffee grown on the arid eastern highlands around the historic city of Harar, at altitudes of 1,500-2,100 m. It is nearly always natural-processed (dry method), which produces a
What is Hawaiian Kona coffee?
Kona is a coffee grown on the western coastal belt of Hawaii's Big Island, on the volcanic slopes of Mauna Loa and Hualalai, at 150-900 m altitude. Protected by a label since 1992, it produces about 1
What is the historic Mocha coffee trade route?
The historic Mocha route is the trade circuit that, from the 15th to the 18th century, shipped coffee from the Ethiopian and Yemeni highlands to Europe via the Yemeni Red Sea port of Mocha (Al-Mukha).
What is Honduran coffee?
Honduras is today the largest coffee producer in Central America and the fifth in the world, with roughly 400,000 tonnes a year, almost entirely Arabica, farmed between 1,000 and 1,700 metres. Long o
What is Huehuetenango coffee?
Huehuetenango is Guatemala's northernmost and highest coffee region, located on the Mexican border in the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes. Its extreme altitudes, some plots exceed 2,000 metres, and dry m
What is Huila coffee region in Colombia?
Huila is a department in south-western Colombia, widely regarded as one of the world's most remarkable specialty coffee regions. Its extreme altitudes (1,500-2,000 m), two annual harvest seasons and c
What is Indian Monsooned Malabar coffee?
Monsooned Malabar is a unique Indian coffee made by exposing green Arabica or Robusta beans, for eight to sixteen weeks, to the humid winds of the south-west monsoon along India's Malabar Coast. The p
What is Indonesian coffee?
Indonesia is the world's fourth-largest coffee producer, at around 660,000 tonnes per year (80 % Robusta, 20 % Arabica). Its historic coffee islands, Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, Flores, Bali, Papua, de
What is Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee?
Jamaica Blue Mountain is a coffee grown on the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, at altitudes of 900-1,700 m, protected by a strict geographical appellation since 1981. Produced in very small volumes (around
What is Java coffee?
Java is an Indonesian island whose coffee played a founding role in the global history of the drink: it was through Java that Arabica coffee reached Europe in the 17th century, via the Dutch East Indi
What is Kenyan coffee known for?
Kenyan coffee is one of the most distinctive in the world: grown at high altitude (1,400-2,100 m) on the slopes of Mount Kenya, planted mostly to SL28 and SL34, processed double-washed, and sold throu
What is Kiambu coffee region?
Kiambu is a Kenyan county located on the northern outskirts of Nairobi, on the southern slopes of Mount Kenya, historically regarded as one of the cradles of quality Kenyan coffee. Although its coffee
What is Mexican coffee from Chiapas and Oaxaca?
Mexican coffee, primarily grown in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, delivers soft, lightly chocolaty, low-acidity profiles, often produced by indigenous smallholders at elevation. Widely organic-cert
What is Nariño coffee region?
Nariño is a department in southern Colombia, bordering Ecuador, renowned for altitudes among the highest of any major coffee country, some plots exceed 2,300 metres. These extreme conditions produce
What is Nicaraguan coffee?
Nicaraguan coffee is a high-grown Arabica farmed mainly in the country's northern highlands, Jinotega, Matagalpa and Nueva Segovia, between 1,000 and 1,700 metres. The cup tends to be soft, balanced
What is Nyeri coffee region?
Nyeri is the Kenyan county considered to produce the country's finest coffee, situated on the eastern and southern slopes of Mount Kenya at altitudes of 1,500 to 1,900 metres. Its red volcanic nitisol
What is Panama Geisha coffee?
Panama Geisha (sometimes spelled Gesha) is an Arabica variety originally from Ethiopia, rediscovered in Panama in the 1960s and catapulted to fame at the 2004 Best of Panama competition. Grown at high
What is Papua New Guinea coffee?
Coffee arrived in Papua New Guinea in the 1920s, brought by colonial administrators from Jamaica, which explains why Jamaican Blue Mountain descendants.
What is peaberry and which origins feature it?
A peaberry (caracolillo in Spanish) is a single, rounded coffee bean that forms when only one seed develops inside a coffee cherry, instead of the usual two flat beans. This natural phenomenon affects
What is Peruvian coffee?
Peruvian coffee is grown across three main zones: Cajamarca in the north (the most celebrated region for specialty), Cusco and Puno in the south, and the.
What is Rwandan coffee?
Rwandan coffee is a washed high-grown Arabica, farmed mostly between 1,400 and 2,000 metres across the country's rolling hills. The cup is bright and clean, dominated by citrus, white flowers, red fru
What is Saint Helena coffee?
Coffee from Saint Helena island, a British Overseas Territory isolated in the South Atlantic, is one of the most anecdotal and historically significant coffee productions in the world. Cultivated sinc
What is Salvadoran coffee?
El Salvador is a small country with a deep coffee heritage, dominated by heirloom varieties Bourbon and Pacamara, grown under fruit-tree shade on volcanic slopes between 1,200 and 1,800 metres. The cu
What is Sidamo coffee?
Sidamo (now Sidama Region) is a vast area in southern Ethiopia producing roughly a third of the country's coffee, one of the largest specialty-coffee volumes in the world. Unlike the more focused Yir
What is the Sidra coffee region?
Sidra is the name given to an Ethiopian coffee variety, not a geographic region strictly speaking, identified and grown primarily in the Guji zone (Oromia). Its exact origin remains debated: some de
What is Sul de Minas coffee region?
Sul de Minas is a coffee region in the south of Minas Gerais state in Brazil, one of the country's highest-producing areas, accounting for approximately 30 % of total Brazilian coffee output. Its roll
What is Sumatra Mandheling coffee?
Sumatra Mandheling is an Indonesian coffee grown on the highlands of northern Sumatra, across Aceh, North Sumatra and the Lake Toba area. It is known for a heavy, syrupy body, low to moderate acidity
What is Tanzanian coffee?
Tanzania may not be the first African origin that comes to mind when browsing a specialty coffee menu, but those who seek it out are rarely disappointed.
What is Toraja coffee from Sulawesi?
Toraja is an Arabica coffee produced in the highlands of the Latimojong mountains on the island of Sulawesi (formerly Celebes) in Indonesia. Processed by the 'giling basah' method (wet-hulling), it de
What is Ugandan coffee?
Uganda has a split coffee identity that makes it uniquely interesting in the specialty world. The lowland regions around Lake Victoria and western Nile.
What is Vietnamese coffee?
Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer, with nearly 1.8 million tonnes a year, over 95 % of it Robusta (Coffea canephora). Most of it grows on the Central Highlands, Dak Lak, Lâm Dong
What is volcanic terroir in coffee?
Volcanic terroir in coffee refers to growing zones on or near volcanic formations, ash, andosols, rhyolites, that endow soils with a unique mineral composition, high water retention and excellent ro
What are the world's main coffee-producing origins?
Coffee is grown in around seventy countries along the 'bean belt', the tropical band between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Four macro-regions dominate production: South America (Br
What is Yemeni coffee?
Yemeni coffee is one of the oldest commercial coffees in the world, farmed since the 15th century on the terraced mountainsides of western Yemen between 1,500 and 2,400 metres. Processed naturally by
What is Yirgacheffe coffee?
Yirgacheffe is a woreda (district) in the Gedeo zone of southern Ethiopia, regarded as one of the most prestigious coffee terroirs in the world. The name refers both to the place and to a cup style: h