📍 Arabica Coffee :
Arabica coffee, often considered the essence of high-quality coffee, offers a refined sensory experience that delights connoisseurs around the world. Let’s dive into the world of this iconic variety and discover what makes Arabica coffee a true pearl in the crown of coffees.

📍 Origins and Culture:
Originating from the highlands of Ethiopia, Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) has taken the world by storm with its exotic origins and exceptional taste profile. Grown at higher altitudes, typically between 600 and 2000 meters, this variety thrives in cool, mountainous climates, finding its natural habitat in regions such as Latin America, East Africa, Asia and certain points in Central America.

📍 Sensory Characteristics :
Arabica stands out for its palette of sublime flavors, offering floral, fruity and tangy notes. Unlike Robusta, Arabica is often described as having a smoother, more complex and less bitter flavor. Its delicate aromas, sometimes accompanied by nuances of hazelnut, caramel or chocolate, create an elegant and balanced caffeinated experience, seducing the most demanding lovers.

📍 Low Caffeine Content :
One of the distinctive characteristics of Arabica is its lower caffeine content compared to Robusta. This contributes to a smoother flavor and more pronounced acidity, making Arabica a popular choice for those who prefer a more subtle and nuanced caffeinated experience.

📍 Demanding Cultivation :
Growing Arabica requires careful care and specific conditions. Plants are sensitive to climatic variations, requiring special attention to avoid disease. However, the efforts made to cultivate this noble variety are rewarded by the exceptional quality of the grains harvested.

📍 Culinary Applications :
Arabica is often favored in the preparation of filter coffees, specialty coffees, and is the variety of choice for coffee lovers seeking a refined experience. Its beans are also used in creating complex blends, adding a distinctive dimension to each cup.

📍 History :
Coffea Arabica originated in Ethiopia, in the Kaffa region, where it was discovered growing wild in about the 15th century.
It was not until the second half of the 17th century, when the desire to drink coffee had also taken hold of Western Europe, that the coffee plant began to migrate, ending Arabia’s monopoly in the cultivation of the coffee tree. Thus, the cultivation of the coffee plant spread to India (Malabar), Java and even to the American continent.

📍 Geography :
This coffee tree is native to East Africa : Ethiopia, South Sudan (Boma plateau), Kenya, or Yemen, Arabia. The round bourbon and pointed bourbon varieties originate from Reunion Island. The only species of coffee tree cultivated until 1865, it is widely distributed in tropical regions, particularly in Central America (Costa Rica, Honduras) and South America (Brazil).

📍 The coffee tree plan :
The Arabian coffee tree is a small tree less than 9 m high, which appreciates the shade of larger trees. The evergreen, bright green, elliptical leaves have a short petiole. The white, sweet flowers are grouped in glomeruli of 3 to 7 in the leaf axils. Their gamopetalous corolla is tube-shaped with 4 or 5 lobes. The fruits are berries, called “cherries”, bright red or purple in color when ripe, with sweet pulp. They contain two seeds, placed face to face, in the characteristic shape of coffee beans.

📍 Robusta vs Arabica taste :
You should know that the caffeine present in coffee cherries serves to protect the plant from attacks by pests. Coffea cenaphora, growing at lower altitudes than Coffea arabica, is more subject to insect attacks, which explains why its caffeine level is twice as high. This characteristic impacts the aroma of robusta, which is known to be full-bodied, bitter and not very nuanced compared to the diversity of aromatic notes of all Arabica varieties. The exceptional taste palette of Arabica is mainly explained by its 44 chromosomes, a number twice as large as Robusta which has only 22 pairs.