Arabica VS Robusta 2
Arabica and robusta:
What is so important about arabica and robusta in 2021?
Arabica is the most common coffee drank in the UK at the moment. Even McDonalds have been boasting of ‘100% arabica coffee’.
Whilst that is great that people are wanting higher quality, single origin arabica coffee it isn’t as great as it sounds.
1. Coffee pricing crisis:
- at the moment, arabica coffee on the commodity market is sold at 90c per lb. The cost of production is $1.80 per lb. This means that the cost that arabica is not even covered in the cost it is sold at. Let alone covering the time, labour and living costs associated with coffee. For more information about the pricing crisis contact esther@hopeespresso.com.
This means that coffee farmers are paying out of their pocket in order for us to be able to drink coffee. That’s not right!
Realistically arabica should be sold at a much higher price than $1.80 in order for it to be worthwhile for the farmers to actually make a living, not a loss off of this amazing product. We should be making sure that coffee is sold at a price that covers cost of production, cost of living and then to make product on top. Especially when arabica coffee takes 4 years to be at a point where it can be sold commercially.
1.a coffee in the future - the problem with the current climate is that coffee farmers cannot make enough money to live at the moment. This has lead to SEVERAL thousands of coffee farmers to dig
up their coffee trees and replace them with plants that they can EAT and sell, like avocados and other fruits/vegetables. At this rate we will see coffee become a shortage in the next 10 years.
1.b next generation coffee farmers - another problem is that coffee farmers’ children are looking for other career options instead of looking to grow coffee and lose money. I mean, I would definitely rather work in an air conditioned call centre than labour in the sun for little to no money. This means that as parents retire, the coffee farms are going out of business because there is noone to take them on.
This is why McDonalds advert recently ‘a cup of quality coffee shouldn’t cost a fortune’ - where they sell a coffee at £0.99 - this is NOT true- quality coffee should cost more than £0.99 if we are to have a sus- tainable industry.
2. specialty vs non-specialty-
Speciality coffee is bought in smaller lots and it is the higher grades of coffee that score over 80/100 on the QGrading Score. Specialty coffee is always bought at a higher rate of over $3.00 per lb - but because it is in such smaller quantities it is not enough to be able to support farmers either if they sell it alone.
I have heard people say that farmers should just grow specialty coffee- if this was possible I’m sure they would- but you cannot. Arabica coffee- 90% grades below 80 and 10% above 80. So we need to pay more for commercial arabica to ensure a sustainable industry.
This is why it is so important that we buy the 90% of the farmers coffee at a high price- not just the 10% specialty in order to keep coffee growers afloat.
3. global warming
coffee is extremely dependent on climate- it is the biggest impact on the quality and flavour. You can im- agine respectively that global warming has a huge impact on coffee growers. It means that if the weath- er changes from year to year, it means that the coffee will not be the same. It can stunt the growth,
or destroy the crop. Frost has destroyed coffee in Brazil this year. Rainfall has caused landslides and flooding in rwanda and Timor Leste, drought has killed coffee plants in India.
This means that coffee farmers have lost all their crops, or not been able to sell them at the same price. With arabica coffee- it takes 4 years to make money off a commercial crop. Combine this with the pricing crisis meaning that coffee growers don’t have spare income, this leads to an even bigger crisis. When coffee growers lose their crops, there is not anything they can do to fix the problem- whether to make adjustments to the farm to cope with the changing weather, and there will be 4 years if they start from scratch to make money again. Global warming is destroying coffee farmers livelihoods.
So where does robusta come into this?
Robusta is easier to grow and cheaper! This means that it can cope with changing climates much better and also it only takes 1 year to get a cash crop off it. You can plant a robusta tree and get money back the next year.
To me, it seems like it’s the only option to ensure the future of coffee.
Robusta has historically been side-lined because of it’s basic flavour and robust profile- but this is also because not much time has been invested in the development of robusta in creating crazy flavour pro- files like arabica coffee.
Robusta is great in a blend and dark roasted, but there is so much more potential which we as an indus- try are just tapping into.
Robusta is now being invested into, like arabica- to be separated into specialty and commercial robusta- by separating the beans at harvest dependent on size and quality to give some amazing options for us in the future.
This pack showcases 2 different robustas from vietnam and uganda, and some arabica options from Brazil (commercial and specialty) to show you the range and potential of coffees.
Robusta is the future of coffee that we are going to see grow forwards in the future