Variety
Typica
Also called Criollo, Arábigo, Kona (in Hawaii), Blue Mountain (closely related)
The original Arabica that left Yemen and seeded most of the world's coffee farms.
- Species
- Coffea arabica
- Lineage
- Ethiopia → Yemen → Java → Americas
- Stature
- Tall
- Yield
- Low
- Best altitude
- 1,200–2,000 m
- Leaf rust
- Very susceptible
- Quality
- Excellent
Where it grows
- Blue Mountains, Jamaica
- Kona, Hawaii
- Cajamarca, Peru
- Yungas, Bolivia
- Java, Indonesia
- Highlands, Papua New Guinea
- Veracruz, Mexico
- Pluma Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Mexico
- Sierra Maestra, Cuba
- Thiotte, Haiti
- Barahona, Dominican Republic
- Yauco, Puerto Rico
- Táchira, Venezuela
- Ermera, Timor-Leste
- Loja, Ecuador
About
Typica is one of the two great founding lines of cultivated Arabica (the other is Bourbon). Seeds smuggled out of Yemen reached India and then Java in the late 1600s; a single plant from Java went to Amsterdam's botanical garden in 1706, and its offspring were carried to the Caribbean and Latin America in the 1700s.
The plants are tall with bronze-tipped young leaves and give small harvests, which is why many farms replaced them with higher-yielding cultivars. Where it survives, it is prized for a clean, sweet cup.