Coffee Species Guide: What’s Really In Your Cup

Most coffee drinkers never stray beyond Arabica and Robusta, and that’s fair enough. But the rest of the coffee world hasn’t exactly been sitting still.

Coffee people and wine people have a surprising amount of overlap in the way they go about their fixations. If you listen to a conversation between the former camp, the way they talk about beans is not unlike the way the latter talks about grape varietals. 

You’ll hear them go on about how this variant carries notes of jasmine and stone fruit, while that other one is characterised by hints of dark chocolate and tobacco, and before long you’ll find yourself nodding along despite not being entirely convinced you’ve ever knowingly tasted tobacco in your life.

Yet for all the discussion around origins, processing methods, and roast profiles, most of the coffee we drink comes from just two species: Arabica and Robusta. There are, however, a few others worth knowing about, especially if you happen to live in this part of the world where some of coffee’s more unusual branches still enjoy a foothold.

Arabica is the crowd favourite and no doubt one you’ve heard of, even as a layman. It accounts for the majority of global coffee production and forms the backbone of specialty coffee as we know it today. If you’ve ever picked up notes of berries, citrus, florals, chocolate, or nuts in your cup, there’s a better chance than not that you were drinking Arabica. It’s a bean that tends towards sweetness, complexity, and a bright kind of acidity that gives the coffee a certain liveliness. 

Robusta, meanwhile, arrives with considerably less interest in subtlety. Containing roughly twice as much caffeine as Arabica (generally speaking), it produces a heavier-bodied cup with earthier, woodier flavours. Historically, it’s often been relegated to instant coffee and espresso blends, but that’s not entirely fair, as a high-quality Robusta can be enjoyably sophisticated in its own right. 

Here, you’ll find notes of dark chocolate, roasted nuts, and spice, with the more premium options absent of the unpleasant bitterness that gives the species its somewhat unfortunate reputation.

Those two are by far the most known, and that’s all well and good, but if there’s one bean we should be paying more attention to here in Malaysia, it’s Liberica. Globally, Liberica accounts for only a small fraction of coffee production. It’s pretty hard to find in most places, but we just happen to be one of the few countries where you can walk into a café and stand a reasonable chance of finding some. And let me tell you, you’ll most certainly know it when you do.

Liberica isn’t really a bean anybody will accuse of being restrained. Instead, it’s practically bursting with tropical fruits, florals, hints of jackfruit, mango, and a syrupy richness that’ll throw you for a long and winding loop if you’re more accustomed to the cleaner profile of Arabica. And it’s perhaps because of this wanton expressiveness that it so tends to divide opinion. 

Some people fall in love with it at first sip, while others can finish an entire cup and still not be entirely sure whether they liked it or not. Personally, I think that’s part of the appeal. In an industry increasingly obsessed with precision and consistency, Liberica remains gloriously weird and a veritable wildcard that many haven’t quite figured out what to do with yet. 

And then you have Excelsa, which, for many years, was being treated as a type of Liberica before some researchers posited that it deserved recognition as its own distinct species. Taxonomic disputes aside, it produces a rather different cup. If Liberica leans more tropical and flamboyant, Excelsa is its more somber cousin that often brings with it notes of darker fruit like plum, currant, and fig, alongside some spice and sweetness.

You’ll also occasionally hear mention of Libex, formally known as Coffea × libex. Rather than a species in and of itself, it’s a naturally occurring and fertile hybrid between Liberica and Excelsa. While still relatively uncommon, it’s attracting interest as growers search for coffee plants capable of withstanding the heat, drought, diseases, and other temperamental factors that are becoming increasingly pressing concerns for coffee cultivation.

So the next time somebody asks whether you prefer Arabica or Robusta, remember that coffee’s family tree extends a little further than that. And if you ever come across a cup of Liberica, do yourself a favour and give it a try. At the very least, it’ll be considerably more interesting than whatever was lurking at the bottom of the office coffee pot.

Opening image: Maddy Freddie | Pexels