How coffee is classified — think in three levels: species, variety, origin

When we choose a coffee, we run into words like "Arabica", "Geisha" and "Washed". They look like parallel pieces of information, but they actually belong to different levels. Split them into three levels and it becomes clear where the cup in front of you came from.

Level one — Species

This is the botanical classification. More than a hundred species have been identified in the genus Coffea, but in practice only three are traded commercially: Arabica (Coffea arabica), Canephora (Coffea canephora, commonly called Robusta) and Liberica (Coffea liberica).

Roughly speaking, Arabica makes up about sixty percent of world production and Canephora just under forty. Liberica is a rarity at less than one percent. These three species differ even in their number of chromosomes, and they differ in taste, in the altitude where they grow and in their resistance to disease. This is the biggest fork in the road.

Level two — Variety

A finer lineage within the same species. Typica, Bourbon, Geisha, Caturra, SL28, Pacamara: these are all names of varieties within Arabica. If the species is "human", the variety is the family line or pedigree.

Some varieties arose from natural mutations; others were deliberately crossed by research institutes. Yield, disease resistance and taste. For more than a century, selection and crossing have been repeated around the world in search of a balance between these three. Today there are hundreds of varieties of Arabica alone.

Level three — Origin and process

Even with the same variety, what ends up in the cup changes a great deal with the altitude, soil and rainfall of the land where it grows, and with how it is handled after harvest. An Ethiopian Geisha and a Panamanian Geisha are the same variety with different faces, and cherries picked from the same tree on the same farm become different drinks when processed as Washed or as Natural.

Read in this order, and the reasons for flavor become clear

The species sets the skeleton, the variety sets the direction of its character, and the origin and process create its final expression. Understand coffee in these three levels and you can explain in your own words why a coffee tastes the way it does.

We disclose the origin, altitude, variety and process on every product page so that you can trace these three levels. Listing information is not the goal in itself; we offer it as a map to help you find the coordinates of your own taste.