READY FOR ROBUSTAS?

What Robustas Have to Offer
the Specialty Coffee Industry

WATCH MOST PEOPLE in the specialty industry say the word, “robusta,” and it’s like they’re already tasting how bad the coffee is—their noses scrunch up, their lips turn down and they shake their head in disgust. They are also likely to add something else—that the only reason anyone would consider a robusta is to save money.

     But watch others talk about robusta and you can almost see them imagining a great cup of coffee—their eyes take on a new sheen and they start throwing around words like espresso blend, crema and body. They will extol high-end, wet-processed Indian and monsooned robustas. A select and courageous few might even utter the word robusta in the same sentence as the phrase “brewed coffee.”
     Still others will grudgingly admit that while robustas might be beneficial additions to an espresso blend for their crema, they don’t belong anywhere else in the specialty coffee industry.
     So what gives? Is robusta really the Cinderella of the specialty industry, good only for doing the dirty work while sister arabica basks in the glory of flavor and aroma? Or is there a place for robusta at the specialty industry’s table?
     As with most questions in the specialty industry, there are no easy answers here. The arabica vs. robusta debate is an old—some might even say tired—argument, and one that has been hashed to death in various articles, on the Internet and around cupping tables since the dawn of specialty coffee.
     Perhaps that’s because as an industry we’re asking the wrong questions. Perhaps it isn’t a matter of arabica vs. robusta at all. Might it be that robusta coffees are a matter of learned taste and preference, instead of perceived quality? Or perhaps, in an industry that is geared toward processing, roasting and cupping almost exclusively arabica, we just haven’t found the proper way to give robusta coffees their due. Is it possible that robusta actually has something to offer if we can just begin to think about it—and handle it—differently?
     To truly answer these questions, we need to start at the beginning, with the differences between extolled arabica and downtrodden robusta and with the science behind the skepticism.

The differences between robusta and arabica coffee start long before they get to the cupping table—they start with the seed. All coffee plants belong to the botanical genus Coffea in the family Rubiaceae, which includes 500 genera and more than 6,000 different species. It is believed that the number of species of Coffea ranges from 25 to 100. Arabica and robusta make up just two of those species.
     Arabicas, known by the name Coffea arabica (Rubiaceae) in the science world, are native to Ethiopia. The species arabica includes a number of subspecies, the most common being Catuai and Caturra. Hybrids and sub-species include Bourbons, Pacas and Maragogypes. A delicate plant requiring rich soil, sun and shade, and specific climates, arabicas are not the easiest plants to grow. Add to that their susceptibility to pests, disease and poor handling, as well as their need to be at high elevations, and it’s easy to see why they require so much care and attention.
     Robusta, on the other hand, refers to a variety of the species Coffea canephora. A much hardier shrub native to West Africa, robustas grow to about 10 meters high with a shallow root system. Robustas thrive in low altitudes, yield more per acre, and have better protection against pests and diseases that often attack arabicas. They also produce more beans than arabica, and their beans contain nearly double the caffeine content.
     Not surprisingly, the beans from each plant are also physically different. Arabica beans tend to be larger and longer, with an oval to rectangular shape. Robustas, on the other hand, tend to be almost circular, with a distinct cleft down the middle.
     As most experienced roasters know, the two species require different roasting times, temperatures and curves. This is partly due to the shapes of the beans, but it also points toward something else—that the beans differ on a cellular level as well.
     Arabica is genetically distinct: it has four sets of chromosomes (44 total), while robusta has the more common set of two (22 total). Bean research has confirmed other differences at the cellular level. In a study by the Institute of Chemistry, Technical University of Braunschweig, titled When are Coffee Beans Just Right? Development of Physico-chemical Properties During Roasting, researchers compared arabica and robusta beans during the roasting process. Their study showed a number of startling differences between the beans. Perhaps the most pronounced was the development of needlelike structures only within the robusta beans. The researchers tested the structures to see if they were caffeine; they were not. Instead the structures, which never showed up in the arabica beans, appeared to be filaments that formed as the cell walls of the robusta beans changed during roasting.
     Additional studies have delved further into these miniscule differences. For example, arabica beans contain both cafestol and kahweol, two cholesterol-raising substances. Robustas, on the other hand, contain half the amount of cafestol and only a trace of kahweol.

Of course, what really matters to most people is not the difference in the trees or in the beans, but the difference in the taste. Traditional lore argues that while arabicas exhibit a large range of wonderful flavors and aromas, robustas only have a few flavors: neutral, rubbery and harsh being some of the common ones.
     In many cases, robusta deserves its bad taste rap, says Pierre Leblache, founder executive of the World Alliance of Gourmet robustas (WAGRO). “First off, I would say that 95 percent plus of robusta today are dry-processed, not washed,” he says. “To be good, a robusta has to be washed. Second, I would say that, with a couple of exceptions, robusta producers have been negligent about properly taking care of their crops.”
     As anyone who has tasted a truly poor-quality robusta can vouch for, there is something about a bad robusta that just seems to make it taste so much worse than a bad arabica. And the majority of the world’s first taste of robusta is one of poor-quality. In the past, the most common robusta producers—Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines—were also the most common offenders in terms of quantity versus quality. Brazil and Ecuador, the two South American countries that produce a measurable amount of robusta, consumed the majority of it in-country.
     However, as many of us know, there is an awful lot of, well, awful arabica on the market as well. It’s nothing we would consider drinkable, much less specialty. And yet, when we talk about arabica, we often talk about it as though anything that falls under the arabica category is of specialty-quality.
     “Robustas are a different class and species of coffee from high-end specialty arabicas,” says Donald Schoenholt, president of Gillies Coffee Company, and a proponent of pure arabica blends. For that reason, Schoenholt, while acknowledging the growing use of robusta beans in espresso blends by prominent members of the trade, has continued to keep his own brand a pure arabica. “Couching language in phrases such as ‘gourmet robusta’ just creates confusion,” he says. “It is misleading because it makes it sound as if robustas are acceptable in specialty coffee, and with the exception of rare applications, and in the hands of master blenders, I just don’t believe it is. I am concerned that acceptance will lead to general use, leaving specialty coffee awash in poor-quality blends.”
     Others believe that robustas do have a place in the industry—if we can get over our biases long enough to give them a shot. “I think it’s fair to say that there’s still an entrenched bias against robustas,” says Jim Cleaves, Manager Coffee Excellence of Dunkin Brands, Inc. “Which is fine—it’s okay to have opinions, but if we’re close-minded, we’re missing out. Although we have to give ourselves a little bit of credit here, because I think the specialty industry has become a bit more open-minded about robustas, especially in espressos.”
     Where does this bias come from (other than that rubbery taste that bad robusta leaves in our mouths)? Some of the answers can be found in the history of robusta, and how it has played into the coffee world at large.

Although discovered later than arabica, robusta nevertheless has an interesting history. The discovery of robusta is attributed to two British explorers, Richard Burton and John Speake, during their 1857 expedition in search of the Nile River source. In what is now Uganda, they discovered not the source of the Nile, but a new kind of coffee: robusta. Of course, they didn’t call it that then—they just knew they’d made a discovery.
     The species got its name later, when a Belgian company began marketing the coffee under the trade name robusta. The coffee was so successful that other countries began to plant it, either in lieu of arabica or to replace arabica trees that had been destroyed by coffee rust and other diseases.
     At the time, the majority of robusta-growing areas were colonies of other states in Europe. Therefore, most of the coffee was exported to the countries that owned them: the majority of Ethiopian coffee went to Italy, West African coffees went to France, East African went to Britain and so on. The United States, on the other hand, was bringing the majority of its coffee in from Latin America, where there was very little robusta.
     Then, robustas did not have the tarnished reputation they do now, says Leblache. “Up to the 1970s, people who traveled commonly agreed that coffee was generally good in Europe and bad in North America,” he says. Today, the countries that originally bought robusta continue to buy robusta along with arabica, while U.S. consumers also continue to crave the arabica taste to which they’ve grown accustomed.
     With the advent of the specialty industry, various programs were started to offer assistance to arabica origins in the form of education and financing. Robusta producers, left to fend for themselves, often resorted to trying to make the most money. Thus, the continued focus on quantity instead of quality.
     It wasn’t until the last five years or so that programs and organizations dedicated to robusta arrived on the scene to offer producers the information they needed on growing, harvesting, processing and marketing. As robusta producers become more informed not only about growing and processing procedures, but also about the specialty market, they are likely to begin producing robustas that meet the specialty industry’s quality standards. “Once robusta growers learn that quality pays, robustas will find their natural place in the specialty coffee market,” says Ted Lingle, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. There is still much to be done before this comes to pass, however.
     “What needs to happen on the producing side is that people need to be made aware that robustas have potential if properly washed and marketed,” Leblache says. “And on the consumer side, we must make people aware that robustas could be good. Robustas have come to be a four-letter word, and we must do our best to educate importers and roasters that this is not so.”

Which brings us back to today, and to robusta’s potential role in the specialty industry. Is there specialty quality robusta out there, and how do we begin to define what that means?
     “I think it is exactly the same thing as gourmet coffees in general,” Leblache says. “It means coffees that have something special in the cup, either flavor or aroma or ideally all of those. Unfortunately, today the term gourmet only applies to arabica.”
     In order to be good enough in the cup to be considered specialty, most agree that robustas need to be carefully processed and ideally must be washed. Indian robustas are perhaps the best-known example of quality robusta. When fully washed, these coffees can earn high premiums—and offer an amazing experience in the cup.
     “In India, coffee growers approach arabica and robusta with equal care and enthusiasm,” says Dr. Joseph John of Josuma Coffee. “Most large growers allocate comparable acreage to both, growing robusta at elevations as high as 3,000 feet.”
     According to John, coffee growers in India consider both arabica and robusta to be important components of their portfolio. Others report a similar experience.
     “In India I saw washed robustas being treated with the same level of attention to detail and quality control as the finest Central American arabica,” says Mike Ferguson, chief of staff for the Specialty Coffee Association of America. “Then I tasted those same robustas in a shot of espresso. It was exquisite. Of course it was. The coffee had been treated like royalty from tree to cup. Is there a place in the specialty coffee industry for robusta treated with this level of care? I think so, but the path is narrow and unforgiving; whereas the path for mediocre arabica remains wide.”
     Leblache believes that other countries are also taking the right steps toward creating specialty robustas. “Indonesians have the know-how and the coffee culture and 90 percent of their coffee is robusta,” he says. “They’re trying to do something good with them by semi-washing them and polishing them and they have potential. However, the country is in total disarray and near bankruptcy.”
     Thanks to the work done by WAGRO, and robusta proponents such as John of Josuma Coffee, some roasters are becoming cautiously optimistic about robustas. “There hasn’t been much room in my heart for robusta, per se, but what people like Dr. John are doing is extraordinary,” says Barth Anderson of Barrington Coffee in Great Barrington, Mass., who uses monsooned robustas in his espresso blend. “They have brought to light some really extraordinary robustas, mainly by helping folks who are producing the coffees at origin do an impeccable job.”
     Anderson admits he is tired of the age-old controversy between robusta and arabica, and encourages roasters to keep an open mind. “It’s always point-counterpoint where people don’t think there’s any room in the world for robustas,” he says. “But to me, I think that the lack of acceptance of really high-quality robustas make them like a secret weapon for businesses who use them.”
     Those roasters who do use robustas agree that well-processed, washed beans offer up something not just different, but good. Roasters such as John Gant of Gimme! Coffee have found that robustas provide a unique yet quality flavor that their customers appreciate. “Our cupping room analysis begins with the evaluation of the greens, the terroir, the processing,” Gant says. “In the case of robustas, we are examining them on the table and in roast as we would high-end arabicas. We have found that with world-class robustas, we get an intense woody, tobacco flavor with a molasses kicker.”
     Anderson agrees, adding his own set of flavor characteristics for his favorite robustas: cocoa, vanilla, sandalwood, bourbon, dried apricot, dried peach, chocolate, anise, blond cigarette tobacco, licorice and scotch. “I must also add that an intense sweetness as well as an unparalleled velvety texture in both the exaggeratedly abundant crema and the liquor can make for some serious espresso extraction,” Anderson says.

So where do we go from here? A middle ground and an open mind seems like the best answer—few in the specialty industry anticipate welcoming robustas with open arms, yet many agree that the industry cannot continue to live on arabicas alone. Perhaps with proper care, correct processing and a new style of roasting that takes into account the differences at the genetic and cellular level of the beans, robustas will begin to deserve their own seat at the specialty industry’s table.