Typica
One of the oldest and most widely disseminated arabica varieties, historically the source from which many other cultivated varieties descend or mutated. Generally lower-yielding than more modern varieties, with a reputation among growers for cup quality.
In short
Typica is the arabica lineage that travelled from Yemen to Asia and then, by way of a handful of plants in European botanical gardens, to the Americas. For about two centuries it was most of the coffee grown in the New World.
It is a tall, low-yielding plant with large beans, well adapted to cold conditions and very susceptible to leaf rust. Farmers have largely replaced it, but its genetics run through a great many of the varieties that took its place.
A route you can date
Sourced
The World Coffee Research catalogue traces Typica from Ethiopia to Yemen by the fifteenth or sixteenth century, then to India and on to Java. From Java a plant reached Amsterdam in 1706 and from there France in 1714.
The spread through the Americas followed quickly: Dutch Guiana in 1719, French Guiana in 1722, Martinique in 1723, Brazil in 1727, Jamaica in 1730, Santo Domingo in 1735, Cuba in 1748, Costa Rica in 1779 and El Salvador in 1840. The catalogue notes that until the 1940s most plantations in South and Central America were planted with Typica.
Because that expansion started from so few plants, the Typica grown across a hemisphere was genetically very uniform, which is part of why disease could do so much damage.
How the plant behaves
Sourced
| Variable | Typical range | What moving it does |
|---|---|---|
| Stature | Tall | |
| Yield potential | Low | |
| Quality potential at high altitude | Very good | |
| Bean size | Large | |
| Leaf tip colour | Bronze | One of the visible differences from green-tipped Bourbon. |
| Coffee leaf rust | Susceptible | |
| Coffee berry disease | Susceptible | |
| Nematodes | Susceptible | |
| First production | Year 4 |
As listed in the World Coffee Research catalogue. The catalogue also describes Typica as well adapted to the coldest conditions.
One variety under many names
Sourced
The catalogue lists these among the names Typica goes by in different places.
- Criollo, Indio and Arábigo
- Local names used in parts of Latin America, meaning roughly creole, Indian and Arabian, for the coffee that had always been grown there.
- Blue Mountain
- The name used in Jamaica, where Typica arrived in 1730. It is a regional name for Typica-type coffee as well as a famous origin.
- Sumatra and Plume Hidalgo
- Names from Indonesia and Mexico for local Typica populations. They are regional names, not separately bred varieties.
Where it survives, and why
CoffeeHQ explanation
A low-yielding, disease-prone, widely spaced tree is expensive to farm. As rust spread and higher-yielding varieties became available, Typica was replaced across most of its former range. The catalogue names Peru, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica as places where it is still widely planted.
Where it remains it is usually for one of two reasons: farms that have not been replanted, or producers who value its cup and can sell it at a premium. Mundo Novo, a natural cross with Bourbon, carries it forward.
Telling it apart from its relatives
Sourced
- Bourbon — The other founding lineage. Slightly higher yielding, green leaf tips, average-sized beans and earlier ripening fruit.
- Mundo Novo — A natural Typica and Bourbon cross that is more vigorous and productive than either parent.
- SL34 — A Kenyan selection that genetic testing places in the Typica group, despite its historical association with Bourbon.
What to do next
- How coffee spread around the world — The wider history that Typica's dated route belongs to.
- Bourbon — The other half of the arabica family tree.
- Arabica — Why a species founded on so few plants is vulnerable today.
- Become a coffee expert — A structured programme from the plant and its processing to roasting, water and tasting.
What the catalogue records as coming from Typica and from Bourbon
The two traditional lines, the mutations and selections the catalogue records under each, and the crosses that joined them again.
Diagram: descent as the catalogue records it
Typica
A traditional variety. The catalogue rates it tall, low for yield and susceptible to leaf rust.
Natural mutation. Parentage recorded: A natural mutation of Typica
Pache
Natural mutation. Parentage recorded: A natural mutation of Typica.
Caripe
Selection. Parentage recorded: A selection of the Typica variety.
Bourbon
A traditional variety. The catalogue rates it tall, medium for yield and susceptible to leaf rust.
Natural mutation. Parentage recorded: Natural mutation of the Bourbon variety
Natural mutation. Parentage recorded: A natural mutation of Bourbon.
Natural mutation. Parentage recorded: A natural mutation of Bourbon
Venecia
Natural mutation. Parentage recorded: A natural mutation of Bourbon
Tekisic
Selection. Parentage recorded: A selection of the Bourbon variety
Crosses that joined the two lines
Typica crossed with Bourbon gave Mundo Novo
Cross. Recorded as: Typica x Bourbon
Mundo Novo crossed with Caturra gave Catuai
Cross. Recorded as: Mundo Novo x Caturra
Pacas crossed with Maragogipe gave Pacamara
Cross. Recorded as: Pacas x Maragogipe
What this diagram does not show
- Varieties the catalogue describes only as Typica-like or Bourbon-like in genetic background, such as SL28, SL34 and K7. That is a finding about ancestry, not a named parent, so no line is drawn.
- Gesha, Java and other selections from Ethiopian landraces, which belong to neither line.
- Any variety the catalogue has no entry for.
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 Typica is documented in the atlas
Only countries CoffeeHQ has written an entry for, and only where a document it has read names Typica there. This is not a list of everywhere it is grown.
- Honduras. One of four arabica varieties the USDA attaché's 2025 report names as grown in the country's six main regions. Source: Honduras: Coffee Annual (HO2025-0002).
- Peru. Over 70 per cent of the crop in the USDA attaché's 2026 report, which does not say how or when that was measured. Source: Peru: Coffee Annual (PE2026-0008).
- Brazil. The catalogue's history has Typica reaching the north of Brazil from Cayenne in 1727 and the south between 1760 and 1770. It is a statement about the eighteenth century. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Costa Rica. The catalogue's history has Costa Rica receiving Typica seed from Cuba in 1779. It is a statement about the eighteenth century. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Guatemala. Pache, a dwarf mutation of Typica, was discovered in 1949 on a farm in Santa Rosa and selected on private farms in Guatemala. The catalogue also says, in passing on its page for a Rwandan variety, that Guatemala was planted entirely in Typica in the 1910s. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Uganda. Nyasaland, which descends from Typica taken from Jamaica to Malawi in 1878, reached Uganda in 1910. The catalogue says it is locally called Bugisu and is important for smallholders on Mount Elgon. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Rwanda. Mibirizi, which the catalogue calls likely the oldest variety in Rwanda, and the Harar released there in 2003 are both placed in the Typica group by genetic tests. The catalogue says Mibirizi's origin is poorly documented, and that the Rwandan authorities no longer recommend this Harar. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Indonesia. Seeds sent from the Malabar coast of India to Java in 1696 and 1699 gave rise to what is now called Typica. The catalogue also records a selection made in 1903 from a Typica population on a Sumatran estate. Source: Coffee Varieties Catalog: arabica and robusta entries, with the histories of each.
- Papua New Guinea. One of six arabica varieties in commercial use, on a 2017 research report that credits an officer of the Coffee Industry Corporation, and one of the four tall ones. No document read gives a share of the area. Source: Improving livelihoods of smallholder families through increased productivity of coffee-based farming systems in the highlands of PNG: final report (ASEM/2008/036, FR2017-08).
- China. One of the two older cultivars that the 2018 paper says make up the rest of the plants in Pu'er and Xishuangbanna; the International Coffee Organization said in 2015 that producers had recently been moving towards it. No share is given. Source: Using farmers' local knowledge of tree provision of ecosystem services to strengthen the emergence of coffee-agroforestry landscapes in southwest China.
- Dominican Republic. Alone on 64 per cent of the coffee land in the coffee council's inventory for 2001, as a World Bank paper of 2004 reprints it, and with Caturra on a further 27 per cent. A 2020 study describes it giving way to rust-tolerant lines since. Source: Export Commodity Production and Broad-based Rural Development: Coffee and Cocoa in the Dominican Republic (Policy Research Working Paper 3306).
- Jamaica. Ninety-five per cent of one High Mountain estate in Clarendon and most of one Blue Mountain farm in St Andrew, as a 2023 field study describes them. Two farms, not a national share: no census of varieties was found. Source: Coffee Berry Borer, Hypothenemus hampei (Ferrari) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae): Activity and Infestation in the High Mountain and Blue Mountain Regions of Jamaica.
- United States (Hawaii and Puerto Rico). Kona Typica is called the prominent variety in Hawaii by a 2022 study citing the state agriculture department. A rust study in Puerto Rico sampled a local Typica it calls Variedad Puerto Rico. No document read gives a share of the acreage. Source: Coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) from the recent invasion into Hawaii shares a genotypic relationship with Latin American populations.
- Nepal. The coffee board says all coffee in Nepal is of the Typica and Bourbon varieties. That is its general description, not a survey; no document read gives a share in the field. Source: नेपाली कफीको इतिहास (History of Nepali coffee) and नेपाली कफी वारे (About Nepali coffee).
Learn it as a course
The Coffee Expert lesson Species and varieties covers this ground in order, with exercises you can do at home.