A group of varieties, not one variety
Sarchimor
A group of varieties descended from one cross: the Timor Hybrid with Villa Sarchi, a compact Costa Rican mutation of Bourbon. Marsellesa, Parainema, Obatá and IAPAR 59 are Sarchimors, and one unstable Sarchimor line is a parent of several modern F1 hybrids.
In short
Sarchimor is the name of a single cross and everything selected from it. In the late 1960s breeders at a Portuguese rust research centre crossed Villa Sarchi, a compact Costa Rican mutation of Bourbon, with a rust-resistant Timor Hybrid plant. The hybrid was numbered H361 and nicknamed Sarchimor.
Like Catimor, it is a group and not a variety, and the World Coffee Research catalogue says so explicitly. Its members include Marsellesa, Parainema, Cuscatleco, Obatá and IAPAR 59. Its most influential member is one that farmers are told not to plant.
How one hybrid became different varieties in different places
Sourced
After first tests in Brazil, the hybrid was sent out in 1971 for field trials in a long list of countries: Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Laos, Malawi, Mozambique, São Tomé, Thailand and Venezuela.
In Central America the population went first to a research station at Turrialba in Costa Rica, where it was numbered T5296, and from there to national programmes. Honduras selected from it over further generations and released Parainema in 2004. El Salvador did the same and named the result Cuscatleco. In Puerto Rico the population was called Limani. Brazil made its own selections: Obatá, released there in 2000, IAPAR 59 and a third called Tupi.
Marsellesa is the most recent of the family in the catalogue. It was selected in Nicaragua by a partnership of a French research institute and a trading company, specifically for rust resistance, and released in 2009.
The line nobody should plant, and everybody uses
Sourced
The catalogue describes T5296 as an important rust-resistant plant that is nonetheless not recommended for farmers, because it is not stable from one generation to the next. Seed from it does not reliably produce plants like the parent.
Breeders valued it anyway, as raw material. Parainema and Cuscatleco are both selections from it, fixed over generations until they came true. And when breeders began making first-generation hybrids, T5296 was the parent they reached for: the catalogue lists Centroamericano, Milenio and Mundo Maya among the hybrids made by crossing it with Ethiopian plants.
So a line that was never released to farmers sits in the ancestry of a good share of the newer rust-resistant coffee in Central America.
Does the Villa Sarchi parent make a difference?
Tendency, not a guarantee
The two groups differ by one parent, and both parents are compact mutations of Bourbon, so there is no strong reason to expect a large difference and the catalogue does not claim one. Its ratings for Sarchimor members cluster a little higher for quality than its ratings for Catimor members: of the eleven it lists, seven are rated good, three very good and one low, where the Catimor group runs down to very low.
That is a pattern in a small number of catalogue rows, not a finding about the parents.
What the catalogue singles out about individual members
Sourced
- Parainema
- Honduran. Rated very high for yield and highly resistant to rust, and resistant to some root-knot nematodes, which most arabica varieties are not.
- Marsellesa
- Selected in Nicaragua and released in 2009. Described as adapted to medium altitudes with notably high acidity in the cup. It is one parent of the hybrid Starmaya.
- Obatá
- Selected by a Brazilian state research institute and released in Brazil in 2000, then brought to Costa Rica for commercial release in 2014.
- Cuscatleco
- El Salvador's selection from T5296, listed as resistant to nematodes.
- IAPAR 59
- A Brazilian selection. Rated low for quality potential at high altitude, the lowest of the group, and resistant to nematodes.
Reading the word on a bag
CoffeeHQ explanation
A roaster who writes 'Sarchimor' has usually been told that by the producer, and the producer may not know which selection is in the field. That is not carelessness. Seed of these lines moved between countries and farms for decades under changing names, and the catalogue's own notes on rust reports say that many farmers cannot be certain what they grow.
The named members are more informative. Marsellesa or Parainema on a bag identifies a released variety with a known breeder. The group name identifies an ancestry.
What to do next
- F1 hybrids — What breeders did with the unstable Sarchimor line.
- Catimor — The sister group, from the cross with Caturra.
- Villa Sarchi — The compact Costa Rican parent.
- Timor Hybrid — The rust-resistant parent, and why resistance from it is fading.
- Become a coffee expert — A structured programme from the plant and its processing to roasting, water and tasting.
How the members differ
8 varieties the catalogue places with Sarchimor, by what it records for each.
| Variety | Lineage as recorded | Yield potential | Quality at high altitude | Leaf rust |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T5296 | Timor Hybrid CIFC 832/2 x Villa Sarchi | Medium | Good | Intermediate resistance |
| Parainema | Selection of T5296 | Very high | Good | Highly resistant |
| Cuscatleco | Selection of T5296 | Medium | Good | Intermediate resistance |
| Marsellesa | Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/10 | High | Good | Intermediate resistance |
| Obata (Red) | Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/10 | High | Good | Intermediate resistance |
| IAPAR 59 | Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi | Medium | Low | Intermediate resistance |
| Limani | Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi | Medium | Good | Intermediate resistance |
| Monte Claro | Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/11 | High | Very good | Intermediate resistance |
As recorded in the World Coffee Research variety catalogue, read on 8 October 2026. Ratings are the catalogue's categories, not measurements. The catalogue covers the varieties it has been given data for; others in the same group exist.
How the Timor Hybrid's resistance was bred into arabica
One natural cross between arabica and robusta, crossed in turn with two compact Bourbon mutations, gave two groups of varieties. Each name below is a separate variety with its own ratings.
Diagram: descent as the catalogue records it
Timor Hybrid × Caturra: the Catimor group
Crosses of Timor Hybrid lines with Caturra, selected separately in different countries.
Catisic
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/1 x Caturra
Costa Rica 95
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/1 x Caturra
Lempira
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/1 x Caturra
IHCAFE 90
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/1 x Caturra
Oro Azteca
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/1 x Caturra
Fronton
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid x Caturra
Catimor 129
Selection. Parentage recorded: Selection of a Catimor breeding line from Colombia (Caturra x Timor Hybrid 1343)
Anacafe 14
Cross. Parentage recorded: (Timor Hybrid 832/1 x Caturra) x Pacamara
Timor Hybrid × Villa Sarchi: the Sarchimor group
Crosses of a Timor Hybrid line with Villa Sarchi. One of them, T5296, was never recommended to farmers and was selected from again.
T5296
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid CIFC 832/2 x Villa Sarchi
Parainema
Selection. Parentage recorded: Selection of T5296
Cuscatleco
Selection. Parentage recorded: Selection of T5296
Marsellesa
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/10
Obata (Red)
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/10
IAPAR 59
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi
Limani
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi
Monte Claro
Cross. Parentage recorded: Timor Hybrid 832/2 x Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/11
What this diagram does not show
- The Colombian varieties bred from Caturra and the Timor Hybrid, which the catalogue does not carry.
- Which Timor Hybrid line each variety descends from beyond what its entry states. The entries name lines 832/1, 832/2 and 1343; the diagram does not separate them.
- Varieties bred from the Timor Hybrid with other parents, such as Catuaí, which the catalogue files as introgressed but outside both groups.
- Whether a variety's rust resistance still holds. The catalogue warns that resistance from the Timor Hybrid is breaking down.
Drawn by CoffeeHQ from the lineage statements in the World Coffee Research variety catalogue, read on 8 October 2026. Each plant is placed only under a parent its own entry names, and the words beside it are the entry's. It is not a complete family tree.
Where Sarchimor is documented in the atlas
Only countries CoffeeHQ has written an entry for, and only where a document it has read names Sarchimor there. This is not a list of everywhere it is grown.
- Guatemala. Listed after Catimor and Caturra, on less than a tenth of farms. Source: Guatemala: Coffee Annual (GT2026-0003).
- Honduras. Parainema, which the attaché's report credits with driving new planting, is in the catalogue a selection from a Sarchimor line made by the Honduran coffee institute and released in 2004. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Nicaragua. Marsellesa and Parainema, both Sarchimor selections in the catalogue, are among the higher-yielding varieties the attaché says growers have recently gained access to. Source: Nicaragua: Coffee Annual (NU2026-0003).
- Brazil. Two members of the group were selected in Brazil: IAPAR 59 by the Paraná institute, and Obatã by the institute at Campinas, which released it in 2000. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Costa Rica. Obatã, selected in Brazil, was brought to Costa Rica for commercial release in 2014 by the Costa Rican coffee institute. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- El Salvador. The USDA attaché's 2026 report names Sarchimor, with Cuscatleco and Marsellesa, among the varieties the government's seedling programme mainly distributes. It gives no share of the area for any of them. Source: El Salvador: Coffee Annual (ES2026-0004).
- Ecuador. Twenty per cent of the arabica crop in a ministry yield survey of 2018, as a 2025 article reports it. The survey itself was not opened, and a share of a sampled crop in 2018 is not a share of what is planted today. Source: Análisis de la producción y consumo de café en Ecuador.
- United States (Hawaii and Puerto Rico). Limaní, selected in Puerto Rico by the island's agricultural experiment station, is a cross of a Timor Hybrid line with Villa Sarchi, which places it in this group; the catalogue's history says it was released to farmers in 1994. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.