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What Is Robusta?: An Exploration of The "Inferior" Coffee Bean

Robusta is a species of coffee plant known as coffea canephora. It is hardier and more disease resistant than arabica coffee but produces a more bitter, inferior tasting bean. However, blending a small amount of robusta into mostly-arabica espresso blends can increase crema production and caffeine content without sacrificing flavor. While not ideal for brewed coffee, robusta has value when used judiciously in espresso blends.

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Jenniffer Masterson
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67 views

What Is Robusta?: An Exploration of The "Inferior" Coffee Bean

Robusta is a species of coffee plant known as coffea canephora. It is hardier and more disease resistant than arabica coffee but produces a more bitter, inferior tasting bean. However, blending a small amount of robusta into mostly-arabica espresso blends can increase crema production and caffeine content without sacrificing flavor. While not ideal for brewed coffee, robusta has value when used judiciously in espresso blends.

Uploaded by

Jenniffer Masterson
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is Robusta?


An exploration of
The “inferior”
Coffee bean…
This is Alice
The other day, Alice asked me an
interesting question (well,
interesting if you are a coffee geek):
“What is Robusta?”
There are a couple of ways to
answer that question. There’s the
simple way (the one I hear the most
often) and there’s the fun way…
The Simple Answer

 “It’s crappy coffee.”

Does that answer your question?


No? That’s what I thought…
The Fun Way!

It’s one thing to say that Robusta is just an inferior coffee that
doesn’t meet our high specialty-coffee standards, but just what is
it? How is it different? Why does anyone use it to begin with?
What does it taste like? What did it ever do to you, anyway?
 Robusta is actually a species
of the coffee plant known as
coffea canephora (as opposed
to the more familiar coffea
arabica). Why do we call it What is it?
Robusta, and not
canephora? Because it is, as
the name implies, robust. It
grows with less effort, in
lower altitudes, and without
the need for as much
fertilizer. It is native to
Africa, but now grows
throughout the world and
comprises about 30% of
coffee harvests globally
What’s the Difference?

Arabica Robusta
 More flavorful, more  Hardier, more versatile,
complex, but harder to cheaper to grow,
grow and more disease resistant, higher
susceptible to disease. caffeine content,
Less caffeine. inferior taste.
So Why Use Robusta?

 If you care about quality coffee, a great flavor profile,
complexity and distinction, why would you ever
sully your palate with inferior, bland Robusta?
 One word: CREMA
If you love espresso (and who doesn’t???)
You know that the delicious crema on top of a perfectly poured shot is
where it’s at! Well, what if you could increase the volume of the crema,
add an extra caffeine jolt, and not sacrifice and espresso deliciousness???
Well, I have some good news …
Meet Espresso
Robusta!
Some specialty coffee roasters have
decided that they are not ready to
completely give up on our old
friend Robusta, relegating it to
bargain-basement instant coffees
and cheap blends. They have found
that blending a small amount of
Robusta into their mostly-Arabica
espresso blends yields some
amazing results.
So we decided to taste it for ourselves. We
ordered some espresso from Vivace in Seattle.

On the left is our traditional Arabica espresso blend, and on the right is
the Robusta blend from Vivace. As you can see, there is a HUGE
difference in the amount of crema!
But what about taste?

Starbucks Vivace

 Although it had less  Slightly sharper up


crema, it remained front, slight banana
smooth and drinkable notes, lovely, delicious
all the way to the crema, but did not hold
bottom. Lovely caramel up well. Toward the
notes, just the right bottom got tangy and
amount of acidity. unpleasant.
So what did we learn?
In the end, both coffees made a delicious shot of espresso, and although different,
we certainly wouldn’t venture to call either of them “inferior.” Would we want to
make a french press of straight Robusta? No way! But it does have something to add
in this circumstance and should not just be written off.
Learn More

Resources:
www.espressovivace.com

About Robusta in Espresso

About the coffee plant

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