COFFEES OF THE WORLD

Few coffees have everything.  Only a very few coffees from Kenya, Costa Rica and Guatemala have the snap of sharp acidity, the  mellowness of fully body and spice and fruit notes too  the works. It’s nearly impossible to find any other complete single origin coffee.

AFRICA

YEMEN, Arabian Peninsula - Southern Tip - Red Sea Region of Africa
Capital - Sanaa
Population -
Coffee Production -
Fragrant - medium body - spicy acidity

ETHIOPIA, Africa - Below the Red Sea and Yemen
Capital - Addis Ababai
Population -
Coffee Production -
Fragrant - medium body - spicy acidity

This dry processed beans is a true Mocha.  The majority are still harvested from cultivars of ancient varieties, often marketed as “Mocha”.   As with all wild foods, you’re taking a chance.   Genuine Harrar is quite variable, as are many dry processed beans.  Sometimes the wildness car border on dirty, and the fruity notes can vanish.   A smaller and higher Southwestern mountain area within Sidamo called Yergacheffe, which produces the most fragrant Sidamos (a bag will usually say either Sidamop or Ethiopian Yergacheffe).  Those floral and perfumed notes might be a part of the original coffee experience.  So, without doubt, is the exciting gaminess of dry  processed beans.  

KENYA, Africa - Below Ethiopia on the Indian Ocean
Capital - Nairobi
Population -
Coffee Production -
Fragrant and floral - solid body - sharply acidic

Most arabicas beans from Africa are washed, and those of Kenya are wondrous.  Kenya has exceedingly high coffee growing plains   5,000 ft.  in the foothills of Mount Kenya.  The sorting, washing and preparation of beans is of a sophistication matched only in Costa Rica and  Colombia. The biggest beans are graded AA, usually signifying extraordinary estate grown coffees.

TANZANIA, Africa - Below Kenya on the Indian Ocean
Capital - Dar es Salaam
Population -
Coffee Production -
Rich flavor - medium to full body - sharply acidic

Tanzanian  coffees closely resemble the more ordinary Kenyas; good ones, such as Peaberry, have a winy acidity.  Political difficulties in most of these countries make quality and availability uncertain from year to year.  News of a washed   out bridge on the main route to a processing factory during harvest can threaten a whole season’s supply.  Civil wars  in Ethiopia and Rwanda, for example can make  coffees vanish for years at a time, bringing yet more misery to countries that rely on the income coffee generates.  And the  vagaries of climate can mean that, from season to season, a coffee will not live up to an initial impression.          
 
ZIMBABWE, Africa - Below Zambia in Southeastern part of the Continent
Capital - Harare
Population -
Coffee Production -
Rich flavor - medium to full body - bright acidic

This African coffee is grown at 6500 ft. above sea level, near it's eastern Mozambique border.

INDONESIA

INDONESIA, Island Country - Between China, and Australia, separates the Indian and Pacific Oceans
Capital - Jakarta
Population -
Coffee Production -
Earthy flavor - medium  body - smooth acidity

Body is  the hallmark of Indonesian coffees.  The earthy notes result from the fact that most Indonesian coffee is dry processed rather than washed, accentuating its already full body.  The elusive taste that keeps Indonesia fans sampling bean after bean is not the fruity blackberry of Kenya but earthy wild mushroom.  Today three of the archipelagos islands produce coffee of word  importance: Java, where the Dutch industry first and most famously took hold, Sulawesi and Sumatra. 

Sulawesi, often called by its old name, Celebes, is the favorite of buyers, for an elegance that sets it apart from other Indonesian coffees.  Elegance in an  unwashed coffee is pretty rare   and so are Sulawesi beans,  because production is much lower on Sulawesi than on Java or Sumatra.  A name often attached automatically to Celebes is Kalossi, the coffee capital of a large growing region on the southwest part of the island  called Toraja, where the native people, called Torajas, raise coffee trees on farms at various elevations.  A very small amount of coffee from Toraja is washed, and it goes under the name of a Japanese company, Toarco, which owns a plantation and mill there.  Although the Japanese have first call on these high quality washed beans, some come to the United States.  Toraja or Toarco beans, as they are labeled, have the famous Indonesian body and mushroomy flavors, and also an herbal finesse. 

Sumatra beans are generally “semi washed” meaning partly washed and partly dry processed.  The coffee is one of the most popular in the specialty trade, because of its massive body. Although less consistent and a bit cruder than Sulawesi, Sumatra is so powerful that it’s hard to ruin.  The two main growing regions on the island are Mandheling and Lintong.  Some merchants used to make claims for the beans of one area over the other’ because Mandheling was considered the classier region, merchants often put the name on the label.  But the distinction is probably blurred at the shipping depot, as it is with the regions of Yemen, and of little importance to the consumer.   Java, synonymous with coffee, earns little respect from coffee people anymore.  Most maintain the the planters of Java destroyed one of the world’s great coffees by tearing down traditional trees starting in the 1970’s and replacing them with higher yielding plants.  With this single, dramatic act, they deprived the world of one of its favorite coffees one buyers relied on in order to brag about their true Mocha Java blends.  This was the final blow to an island that had already seen most of its old arabica trees replaced with robustas after an attack of disease, in 1876.  During most of this century, only five government owned plantations on Java even grew arabica beans; today the less said about the insipid beans on those estates, grown on high yielding trees and machine dried at high heat, the better.   In aged Indonesias, the body is so thick as to be almost syrupy, regardless of the brewing method, but especially when brewed in a plunger pot.  The plush, warm flavor can even make aged Sulawesi or Sumatra an alternative to an after dinner liqueur.   

 
NEW GUINEA, Island Country - next to Indonesia, separates the Indian and Pacific Oceans
Capital - Port Moresby
Population -
Coffee Production -
Earthy flavor - full  body - mild acidity

At its best, New Guinea coffee has more pleasing and interesting acidity than any other Indonesia.  This makes it more like a Central American coffee, except for its typically Indonesian heavy  body and pronounced sweetness.  New Guinea can be a helpful addition to an espresso blend, with the added bonus that it has heavier body than just about any washed arabica, a real  advantage for espresso roasters like the premium Italian roaster, Illy Caffe, who insists on avoiding robustas in their espresso blends.

CENTRAL AMERICA

COSTA RICA, Central America, North of Panama, South of Nicaragua
Capital - San Jose
Population -
Coffee Production - 9.3% of Export, by 50,000 producers
Robust and rich flavor - exceptional body - sharp smooth acidity

It started from a single tree, a fine arabica one that began the Western hemisphere’s mighty industry.  It crossed the sea in 1723 under the care of an enterprising marine captain, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, who had heard how well coffee grew in Java and got the idea of bringing a tree back to Martinique, or  Cuba by some accounts, the Caribbean colony where he was posted. The story is so romantic that tale spinners want to say he stole a tree by night and made off for his ship.  But according to Gordon Wrigley’s authoritative “Coffee”, it more likely that Louis XV  instructed de Clieu to try to grow the tree, which the unsuspecting Dutch had given him as a royal gift, on the island.  The amazing fact remains that the one tree of an arabica species later name for Bourbon, the island in the Indian Ocean now called Reunion, gave life to hundreds of plantations spanning islands and continents.  the first tree brought from the Carribean to Costa Rica in 1779.  Costa Rica and Guatemala,  produce coffees of legendary  completeness;  it is hard to get a bad coffee from Costa Rica which for consistency of its processing is called the Switzerland of coffee   producing countries.  Coffee people keep track of tiny portions of the small country, favoring, say, the particularly  bright coffees of Tres Rios or Dota.   The growing regions Talamanca, Turrialba, Tres Rios, West Valley, Central Valley, Orosi, and Tarrazu.   There are many towns  and producers within these regions such as Vulcan in Talamanca; Barva, Carrizal and Santo Domingo in the Central Valley; Narango and San Ramon in the West Valley. The oldest mills in Central America are located  in Tres Rios.  Costa Rican coffee is rarely out of balance, neither too full  bodied rlative to the acidity nor peculiarly acidic.  It holds its own as it cools, which is quite a feat.  La Minita, the ultimare Costa Rican coffee, is clear as a bell, and even stone cold, it stays sweet and beautifully pure.  So immaculate are many Costa Rican beans, especially compared to the defect ridden samples that arrive daily in buyers’ cupping rooms, that the country draws a kind of reverse criticism: its coffee is too perfect. 

Costa Rica grows it's coffee at an altitude of 1300 - 1700 meters above sea level.  It cultivates 271,000 acres on 125,000 farms, with a total of 517 million trees.  The beans are washed, and then air, sun, or machine dried.

GUATEMALA, Central America, Borders Mexico on the North,  Belize, El Salvadore, and Honduras
Capital - Guatemala City
Population -
Coffee Production -
Fragrant and rich flavor - medium body - sharp acidity
 
Guatemala, the country next door, whose coffees are loved as much as Costa Rica’s.  The beans inspire adjectives like “smoky” and “chocolaty” providing a tantalizing counter  point to what Howell calls “razor fine acidity.” The Growing Regions are: Antigua, Fraijanes Plateau, Highland Huehue, New Oriente, Rainforest Coban, Antitlan, and Volcanic San Marcos.   The soil is in the most noted growing region, Antigua, is volcanic, like the soil of the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica.   Antiguan coffees grow on  volcanic hillsides an hour or so away from the capital, Guatemala City.  These hillsides, coffee hands will tell you, are the most beautiful coffee terraces in the world.   The various regions of Guatemala have preserved their individuality better than those of Costa Rica, chiefly because Guatemala has more microclimates than Costa Rica, and climate strongly affects the character of beans.  Guatemalan farmers have not yet planted high yielding hybrids, as many Costa Rican farmers have done.  Instead, many Guatemalans have preserved their Bourbon trees, even going as far as to rip out newer varieties and replant traditional trees.  Some would be happy to spend a lifetime drinking only Guatemalan coffee.  They would often be disappointed by defects, because processing in Guatemala is not as careful as it is in Costa Rica.  But when you hit a Guatemalan Antigua thst is just right  with acidity, sweetness and enveloping body in perfect balance, and a veil of smokiness that gives the whole thing depth and mystery you can be forgiven for never wanting to look further.

MEXICO, Central America
Capital - Mexico City
Population -
Coffee Production -
Light body - sharp acidity

Mexico, bordering  Guatemala, has recently tried to make forays into the specialty world, after years of being content to watch its beans go into mass masket blends.  So far, choosy buyers aren ‘t impressed.  Acidity is lacking, and the beans are often low grown and soft, making them unsuitable for anything darker than a medium roast.  You’ll frequently find Mexican coffees offered at specialty stores, because to buy Mexican beans is, as Jerry Baldwin says, “the neighborly thing to do.”  The name will frequently  include the word “altura”, which simply means “high grown”  and suggests but does not guarantee good quality.  The most flavorful beans come from Chiapas and Oaxaca, the growing regions nearest the Guatemalan border, where beans are washed.  Although washing is the “fancy” way of preparing coffees, it removes the rough and earthy edges some people remember fondly from trips to Mexico: indeed, the great majority of Mexican beans are dry  processed.

PANAMA, Central America, Bordering on South America
Capital - Panama City
Population -
Coffee Production -
Fragrant - medium body - medium acidity

Panama produces washed arabicas that most buyers put into blends.  Mary Townsend buys the entire production of one farm, La Florentina, for Starbucks, comparing it in acidity and body to  a good but not great Costa Rican or Guatemalan coffee.  Her peers, though, are only sometimes excited about anything they taste from Panama.

NICARAGUA, Central America
Capital - Managua
Population -
Coffee Production -
Full body - sharp acidity
 
Nicaragua  has in the past produced excellent arabicas from old Bourbon stocks.  Many Bourbon trees were uprooted in Nicaragua, which  in recent years has been renovating its coffee industry, privatizing it again after years of state control.  Estate grown coffees are just beginning to be sent to specialty roaster;  if you find Nicaraguan beans marked with the name of the adjoining Matagalpa and Jinotega regions, or with the name of any estate, you’ll likely taste coffee with the full body of a Caribbean bean and the powerful acidity of a Central America.  Kevin Knox calls coffee Nicaragua’s “industry of hope.”

EL SALVADOR, Central America
Capital - San Salvador
Population -
Coffee Production -
El Salvador has been avoided by politically correct roasters, who object to the country’s human  rights records.  This is a valid objection, but one that surprisingly doesn’t seem to trouble the same roasters about other coffee producing countries  whose attitudes toward human rights continue to be controversial. 

THE CARIBBEAN

JAMAICA
Capital - Kingston
Population -
Coffee Production -

The Caribbean. landing point of the first beans in the Western hemisphere, has diminished in importance as a coffee growing region.  The most famous Caribbean coffee, of course, is that of Jamaica, which, unlike most other island, has mountains high enough to produce superb beans the Blue Mountains, home sweet home to any coffee snob who doesn’t know much.  If, by some accident, true Blue Mountain does plan a part in any of the many blends that claim to feature it, professional tasters would be hard pressed to confirm the fact even genuine Blue Mountain often tastes like just another Central. Genuine Blue Mountain is “exquisite when it is good.”  The price, he points out, is so high because it is “the rarest of the arabica  beans with the potential for greatness.”   

PUERTO RICO
Capital -
Population -
Coffee Production -

Located in the Southwestern mountains, Yauco is known as Puerto Rico's leading coffee region.  A full bodied and pleasantly sweet coffee.  This coffee joins Kona as the other American coffee.

SOUTH AMERICA

COLOMBIA, South America, Northern tip, West of Venezuela
Capital - Bogota
Population - 20% of export
Coffee Production -
 
The first trees were brought via Venezuela, by clergy in 1808 from the French Antilles.  The coffees of South America are much better known to the public than those of Central America, but are of relatively scant interest to specialty roasters.  Colombia has been enormously successful in marketing itself as a producer of fine coffees by showing Juan Valdez and his mule trudging up mountain sides, and the country’s washed arabicas are consistently well processed.  But specialty merchants must look long and hard to find anything they’s think of selling to be brewed alone.  At best, Colombias are clean and neutral good for blends in which they will give moderate acidity and body, and often a sweetness that some describe as caramel  like. 

Colombian coffees are grown at an altitude of 1700 - 1900 meters above sea level.  There are 2.75 million acres cultivated by 300,000 farms, on 2.7 billion trees.  They are grown under the shade of banana, guamo, and churimo orange trees.  They are mostly sun dried.  The highest grade is Supremo, second is the Excelso.

BRAZIL, South America, Eastern coast giant country
Capital - Brasilia
Population -
Coffee Production -

The port of Santos is famous for it's coffee which comes from the State of Minas Gerais, called Brazilian Santos.  It is a mellow and light coffee, it is often used to round out blends of other coffees.

HAWAII

HAWAII
Capital - Honolulu
Population -
Coffee Production -