The following are two of a series of coffee related videos produced by Jennifer (aka BehindTheBeans). They may be of interest to people who have an interest in growing coffee trees. Behind the Beans, Episode #10: Coffee Varieties, Part I Behind the Beans, Episode #11: Coffee Varieties, Part II I think it's fairly safe to assume the little coffee trees sold in 4" pots (unmarked, of course!) are Coffea arabica of some sort but the videos make me wonder which of the many varieties I'm actually growing. Hopefully somebody in the nursery industry can shed some light on this. A cursory search turned up quite a few different arabica varieties. Watching these videos makes me want to add more plants to my collection. By the way, I think the varieties named in the videos are: (arabica) Coffea arabica var. arabica (robusta) Coffea canephora (caturra) Coffea arabica var. caturra (excelsa) Coffea liberica var. dewevrei (maragogype) Coffea arabica var. maragogype
I'll take a look for one (does language matter?). I only know the difference by experience on plantations growing the various arabica cultivars....
I don't think language matters; could always use Google to translate. The varietal names are usually in English anyway.
Huh. While there are tons of charts out there for ripeness, there's nothing comparing the cultivars (oh, and with coffee, the varietal names aren't always in English - there's a huge number of Spanish-named cultivars, for example. In Ecuador alone, there are 25 distinct types, all of which are C. arabica of various subspecies. Criollo is one of the best of these - they're cherries the size of, well, actual cherries, with deep red skins when properly ripe.) Next time you've got cherries on your plant, maybe take a picture and post it here.
