Coffee varieties
Bourbon, a Bourbon, is the most culturally and genetically significant Arabica coffee variety in the world, together with tin pickups.
The Bourbon coffee dynasty is very powerful, its own and descendant mutants are spread across the world's coffee plantations, and it is still the main cultivar in many countries, and often appears in COE.
This article focuses on the rise of the Bourbon Dynasty and the development history of global diffusion and planting, and introduces the names of bourbon coffee in various countries, and shares the knowledge with friends.
PART 01
French mission bourbon coffee
Pictured: Fruit of the Red Wave
According to the World Coffee Research, the Bourbon variety comes from Yemen and is a natural variant of the tin pickup. Therefore, the genetic origin of this coffee is defined as the Bourbon-Typica Group.
Beginning in Yemen, the descendants of bourbon and tin pickup trucks spread all over the world, forming the basis of modern Arabica coffee cultivation and pioneering the coffee drinking culture of all ages.
The name bourbon coffee is related to a 17th-century French colony island called Bourbon in the western Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, 680 kilometers east of the island of Madagascar.
Pictured: An ancient map of Bourbon Made in the 1750s
This journey of the global variety of Bourbon coffee in Yemen, carried out by French missionaries, was known earlier and went down in history.
Therefore, this Bourbon coffee, which shoulders the mission of mission and pioneering, is called: French Mission Bourbon, a French missionary bourbon.
In 1663, the French settled on Bourbon Island, and in the early 1700s, the legal company introduced Bourbon from Yemen to Bourbon (now known as Reunion La Réunion), naming this batch of Yemeni coffee Bourbon Coffee.
According to historical evidence, the French tried three times to introduce this coffee from Yemen to Bourbon in 1708, 1715 and 1718.
Pictured: Coffee grower's hut on Bourbon Island in the mid-19th century
Bourbon became the nursery for the French to cultivate Yemeni bourbon coffee in the eighteenth century, and bourbon coffee was not taken out of the island until the middle of the nineteenth century to be planted in Africa and South America and Brazil, and began to spread widely.
In the mid-nineteenth century, French Whitsunday missionaries came to Africa and founded the Order in 1841 on the French island of Reunion, and with the missionaries' missionary journeys, bourbon coffee began to be brought to Africa and South America for cultivation.
Figure: Global Spread Of Bourbon Coffee Growing Path (Reference Blue Line)
~ Bourbon coffee landed in the Americas
In 1860, the French introduced Bourbon coffee from Reunion Island to South America, and bourbon coffee reached the southern Brazilian area near Campinas.
From there, bourbon spread north to Central America, where bourbon coffee flourished and became the oldest Latin American mother coffee species.
~ Bourbon coffee landed in Africa
Similar to the spread of Brazilian coffee, in 1862 French missionaries established missions in Bagamoyo (then known as Tanganyika) off the coast of Tanzania and St. Augustine (today Kikuyu Kikuyu) in Kenya.
In 1893, French missionaries established missions in Brabra, Kenya (Taita Hills, Kenya).
In these missionary missions, the missionaries will all come from bourbon coffee seeds and sow them in their parishes in East Africa.
Photo: Kenya coffee plantation in the early 20th century
Bourbon coffee, which was brought to the Americas and Africa by French missionaries in the 19th century, began to take root and thrive under the microclimates and soils of various countries and began to reproduce.
The rise of bourbon caffeine in the 20th century by the agricultural research centers of various coffee-producing countries gave rise to various new names for the selection and cultivation of their descendants.
~Kenya Agricultural Research Laboratory Breeding: K7
Pictured: K7 coffee tree
K7, a coffee variety grown in Kenya today, was selected in 1936 by Mr. RH Walker from his Legetet estate in Muhorohi, among a group of French missionary bourbon coffee trees.
K7 was released by Kenya's Scott Lab after five generations of selection and is used in modern breeding programs in Kenya and Tanzania because of its tolerance for coffee prize fruits.
~Kenya Agricultural Research Laboratory Breeding: SL28
Pictured: SL28 coffee flower
The SL28 is one of the most well-known and revered varieties in Africa. It has very good drought resistance properties, as well as high flavor cup quality potential.
SL28 was released by scientists from the Scott Lab in Kenya to breed from a selection of drought-resistant Bourbon varieties in Tanzania.
Today, it is not only widely cultivated in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe and other countries in Africa, but also spread to coffee plantations in Latin America.
However, the Bourbon that left with the French mission was not the first Bourbon coffee to leave Yemen.
With the discovery of coffee genetic engineering studies in recent years, it turns out that bourbon coffee has been taken out of Yemen and settled in India as early as the 17th century.
These bourbon coffees, which thrived in India, together with the French missionary bourbon, became the ancestors of contemporary African bourbon coffee.
PART 02
The story of Indian Bourbon
Around the 1660s, a Muslim from India, Bababdan, traveled to Yemen and returned home with seven Yemeni coffee seeds planted on Chandragiri Chandragiri Hill in Karnataka Karnataka.
The source of this batch of Yemeni coffee seeds was originally thought to be a tin pickup truck, but later due to the revelation of modern genetic engineering, it was found that it was the descendants of Yemeni bourbon coffee.
As a result, genetics revealed on the Chandragiri Hills in Karnataka that the bourbon coffee from Yemen became the bourbon coffee that is now grown in kent kent, coorg, and mysore regions in India.
At the beginning of the 20th century, these Indian bourbon coffees were brought to the colonies of the East African powers to be cultivated and became popular bourbon varieties in many African countries today.
Indian Bourbon_ Jackson Jackson breed
Pictured: Jackson coffee tree
Routes: Yemen→ India (1670s) → Kenya (1920s) → Rwanda and Burundi.
Jackson Jackson Variety was a 1900s coffee farmer in Mysore, India, who discovered bourbon coffee on his farm that was resistant to coffee leaf rust.
In the 1920s, the seedlings of these trees were sent to coffee research stations in Kenya and Tanzania, and the coffee became the Jackson Jackson variety now grown in Rwanda and Bron.
Indian Bourbon _Kent Kent variety
Routes of transmission: Yemen→ India (1670s) → Kenya (1910s)
Kent Kent coffee, a bourbon coffee grown in the Kent region of India, was brought to Kenya by the British in the 1911s for study. It was widely cultivated in the Meru region of Kenya in the 1930s.
Kent Coffee, also came to Tanzania in the 1920s, and after research and breeding in the country's agricultural laboratories, released the new Kent breeding KP423.
Photo: TaCRI road sign at the Tanzania Coffee Research Centre
Indian bourbon _KP423 variety
Transmission routes: Bourbon in Yemen→ Bourbon in India (1670s) → Kent, Tanzania (1920s) → the Tanzania Lyamungu Research Station released KP423 (1940s) → Uganda
KP423, a Kent breeding was released in the 1940s by the Tanzania Lyamungu Research Station in the 1920s, which was bred from Kent coffee from India.
KP423 is now the widely grown Arabica coffee in Tanzania and Uganda.
PART 03
Bourbon mutant in the Americas
In the 1860s, the first bourbon coffee settled in Brazil, and after taking root and breeding, bourbon coffee began to appear mutant varieties after nearly a hundred years of breeding in the Americas.
~Color mutation: Yellow Bourbon
Pictured: Brazilian yellow bourbon fruit
Yellow Bourbon was discovered in the 1930s at a red bourbon farm near Pederneiras (SP) in Brazil.
The Campinas Agricultural Research Institute (IAC) in Brazil began researching the coffee and in the 1950s released several commercial varieties of yellow bourbon.
Yellow Bourbon matures faster, but the yield is lower than that of Red Bourbon, and the resistance to leaf rust is also weaker than that of Red Bourbon.
However, the sweetness and aroma of yellow bourbon are more obvious than those of red bourbon, and there is obvious citrus acidity. In 2017, a Brazilian yellow bourbon scored 92.33 points in the COE sun group category.
~Color mutation: Orange bourbon
Pictured: Salvador orange bourbon fruit
Orange Bourbon Orange Bourbon is the same as Yellow Bourbon, which is also a natural mutant of the bourbon coffee fruit color gene, first found in El Salvador.
The cherry of this plant is usually peach/pink and sometimes referred to as "pink bourbon", but this one is easily confused with another pink bourbon in Colombia.
(The Colombian Pink Bourbon corrected its COE in 2021 to determine that it should belong to the Ethiopian coffee strain, not the Bourbon family.)
~Brazilian mutant: Kadura
Pictured: The fruit of Kadura
Caturra Kadullah, a dwarf species (dwarfism) of bourbon coffee, derives its name from the Guarani language, meaning "small".
It was discovered between 1915 and 1918 on a coffee plantation in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
The Institute of Agronomy (IAC) of the State of São Paulo in Campinas, Brazil, has been selecting Cardura since 1937, but the variety has never been officially released in Brazil, but is popular in Central America.
~Costa Rican mutant: Verasacci
Pictured: Verasacci coffee tree
Villa Sarchi Virazaki (also known as La Luisa or Villalobos Bourbon) is also a dwarf species (dwarfism) of bourbon coffee.
Villa Sarchi was first discovered in the 1950s in the northwestern region of the province of Alajuela, Costa Rica, and Villa Sarchi is known for its ability to adapt to high altitudes and withstand strong winds.
Villasach was introduced to Honduras by IHCAFE in 1974.
~Costa Rican mutant: Vannesia
Venecia Vanessia is a natural mutant of Kadura found in the San Carlos region of the Central Valley of Costa Rica.
Venecia Vanishia, as short as Kadura, is sensitive to coffee leaf rust, harvests late in the dry season, takes longer to mature, helps to develop higher sweetness, and is also very adapted to grow in rainy areas.
Venecia Vanessia coffee, which at the same time has a rich acidity, is a new breed of Cardura coffee released by the Costa Rican Coffee Research Center (ICAFE).
~ Salvadoran mutant: Pacas
Pictured: Pacas coffee tree
Pacas, like Kadura and Verasacci, belong to the natural mutant dwarf species of bourbon coffee.
Pacas was discovered in 1949 on a Family Farm in Pacas in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador.
In 1960, the Salvadoran Coffee Institute (ISIC) made a genealogy selection for Pacas, which is now widely cultivated in El Salvador and Honduras.
~ Mutant of Bourbon Island: Pointed Bourbon
Pictured: The pointed bourbon bean type is particularly slender
Laurina pointed bourbon, is the oldest natural mutant species in the bourbon species, its eye number is small, both ends pointed, so it is called pointed bourbon, English name Bourbon Pointu.
Laurina's sharp bourbon coffee was famous in the 18th century, but it was once rumored to be extinct in 1942 due to a series of diseases such as leaf rust.
It was not until 2001 that the sharp bourbon was rediscovered on bourbon island, and then through French scientists and Japanese coffee cultivation and restoration, in 2007 the sharp bourbon began to appear in small quantities, because of the rarity and expensive, the price of the advent was four times higher than that of the Blue Mountains.
Tip bourbon is known for its "low caffeine" characteristics, this variety of coffee has a caffeine content of only 50% of the average Arabica variety, and the chlorogenic acid content is also 20% lower than usual.
PART 04
Other Bourbon varieties of the Americas
Some bourbons do not have obvious mutations, but because of some of their characteristics, they have been given other new names.
~Pepper bourbons from Colombia
Pictured: Smallholder farmers growing pepper bourbon
Bourcon Aji pepper bourbon, the name appears in the variety description of the sixth winner of Colombia's COE in 2021.
According to the owner of the farm, this bourbon ripe cherry smell, with the smell of red pepper, is different from other bourbon coffees in the coffee garden, so he took the seeds and planted it independently and named it chili bourbon.
It's unclear whether the bourbon smell is just a microclimate terroir or if it's really a new bourbon coffee mutant.
~Stripes next to Columbia
Pictured: Fruit next to a streaked wave
Stripped Bourbon striped bourbon, along with chili bourbon, are unusual bourbons found in recent years in the Huilan region of Colombia.
The farm next to the striped waves is called La Palma, and the grower is Cesar Morales, which was discovered in Colombia by the Project Origin team in Australia.
This red bourbon coffee fruit has some yellow stripes, and the floral aroma and sweetness of the striped bourbon coffee are higher, and the farm owner named it striped bourbon.
~ Titus of El Salvador
Pictured: Tiks Bourbon coffee tree
The Tekisic Tiks are selected by the Salvadoran Coffee Institute (ISIC), a bourbon coffee variety that began production in 1949 and was released in 1977.
Tekisic is bourbon coffee, a non-mutant species, which is a strong, high-flavor plant selected by agricultural scientists in many bourbons, deliberately cultivated.
The name Tekisic comes from tekiti, which means "work" in Nahuatl, and Tekisic is common in Salvadoran coffee plantations.
~ Puerto Rico Selection: Bourbon Mayaques 71/139
Mayaguez, the name of a municipality located in Puerto Rico, has been spreading to Central America since the introduction of bourbon coffee in Brazil in the 1860s, and Puerto Rico has followed suit with tin pickups to grow bourbon.
Bourbon Mayaguez got its name because it was a seed collected by the USDA of the United States Department of Agriculture in The City of Majaquis, Puerto Rico, and sent from Central America to Africa.
This mayaguez mayaquis bourbon coffee was introduced to the seed resource collection centre in Murengu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the 1930s and then to Rwanda in the early 1950s.
Photo: Mayakues 71 Coffee Tree
When the population of Bourbon Mayaguez was introduced to East Africa, a number of mother trees were chosen as the basis for the release of new varieties. Bourbon Mayaguez 71 and Bourbon Mayaguez 139 come from these options.
They are similar in agronomic performance, with moderate yields, good cup quality, suitable for medium altitudes, and are now common in Rwanda and Burundi.
PART 05
The flavor of bourbon
Pictured: Bourbon coffee cherries
After sorting out the recent development of bourbon coffee in the United States and Africa coffee producing countries today, this article will finally talk about the flavor characteristics of bourbon coffee.
Bourbon, a natural mutation of a tin pickup, is a high-quality, medium-yield coffee known for its sweetness.
However, it is less resistant to leaf rust, coffee berry borers, and other pests and diseases.
Bourbon coffee grows best at altitudes of 1,100 to 2,000 meters above sea level. Its coffee quality is similar to that of the Typica variety, but the production capacity is 20% to 30% higher than that of the Tin Pickup variety. This is also the main reason why bourbon coffee was quickly popular with Latin American coffee planters in the 19th century.
However, bourbon is still a less productive variety compared to other common coffee plants such as bourra, Catuaí and Pacas. This is also the reason why bourbon derivatives are more popular today than bourbon.
Pictured: The leaf margins of Bourbon coffee are wavy
The leaves of bourbon coffee are large and wide, with wavy edges, and tend to have more secondary branches than other coffee trees.
Bourbon is valued for its complex acidity and wonderful balance.
Bourbon coffee is prominently sweet, with caramel quality, crisp acidity, and floral aromas, but depending on where it is grown, it takes on a very different flavor.
Pictured: Bourbon coffee flavor characteristics
Bourbon coffee in El Salvador, for example, may have more cream and toffee flavors. As for the orange bourbon, there is a brighter floral fragrance.
As for the yellow bourbon, it has a more pronounced acidity and a flavor of dried fruit. Bourbon coffee in Africa, on the other hand, is more fruity.
Unlike tin pickups, bourbon coffee is still the main cultivar in many countries, and COE in Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru can still often see bourbon coffee on the list.