You love to drink your cup of Arabica at your favorite’s roastery place, but do you ever taste Robusta coffee, which produced by the coffee farmers around 40% global coffee production.
A large number of coffee beans are produced each year, but despite its high production, it is known to be the ‘least popular” option in the coffee world. But why? Read on to find out.
Growing Conditions and Characteristics of Robusta Coffee
Robusta grows with the altitude 500-900 metres above sea level. Robusta coffee is mainly grown in Vietnam, which accounts for 40% of the world’s Robusta exports, followed by Brazil (25%) and Indonesia (13%). It produces 1 to 2 tonnes of green coffee beans each hectares in average, even up to 4 tonnes in some countries. Robusta could grows in a place with higher temperature than Arabica and robust-just like its name. It takes around 11 months for the Robusta plant to mature and be harvested.
Caffeine Content
Robusta coffee is highly immune to pests and diseases that damage crops. But because of its immunity, it results of high caffeine level which act as a natural pesticide in coffee cherries. Robusta bean contains around 2.7% caffeine, almost double of Arabica bean with 1.5% of caffeine.
Taste and Price
Due to its high caffeine levels, it tastes bitter with earthy and nutty notes. Growing conditions, environment and origin are factors that influence the taste of the beans. Many of café and roaster blend it with Arabica beans to get the best taste for their menu.
Robusta bean has cheaper price than Arabica on the market because of its higher yield and different taste. There are many commercial coffee blends using it as proportional substitute of Arabica to get affordable menu with tolerable taste. From the business sight, it helps the owner to reduce the costs and increase profits.
Despite of brief explanation regarding its low quality, there is the specialty grade beans for Robusta too. It has zero major defect with cleaner and smoother taste than the commercial beans. Robusta beans are widely used by Singaporean and Malaysian coffee factory for its popular coffee products, when you can also try another method of processed coffee through the Turkish coffee menu. The roasting, grinding profile, and brewing styles will offers various distinctive taste in your tongue. Mostly the beans are roasted in dark profile with either fine, super fine or Turkish size of coffee powder.
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