The rise of Robusta coffee

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With production of Robusta growing each year, has opinion on Arabica’s often-overlooked relative changed and could it be the answer to coffee’s climate woes?

The production of Robusta coffee is steadily increasing every year. In the early 1990s, the species accounted for about 28 per cent of global coffee production, while today it’s almost 44 per cent. Over the past three decades, worldwide coffee production has grown by about 1.9 per cent each year, with a significant proportion of that growth accounted for via increased Robusta production according to the International Coffee Organization.

Hanna Neuschwander, Senior Advisor for Communications at World Coffee Research, says there are several factors contributing to the species’ rise, but a key driver has been the development of the Vietnamese coffee sector.

“From 1990 to 2024, Vietnam has seen a 2100 per cent increase in Robusta production. Behind Brazil, Vietnam is now the world’s second largest coffee producer, and nearly all the country’s output is Robusta,” says Neuschwander.

Compared to Arabica, Robusta thrives in hotter, more humid, and lower elevation environments, which makes Vietnam an ideal origin for the coffee species. As global demand for coffee continued to rise in the 1990s, Vietnam saw an economic opportunity.

“Arabica tends to like higher elevations and Vietnam is a lower-elevation country. When Vietnam began making major investments in expanding coffee production in the 1980s and 1990s, Robusta was the better fit for the land they had available–and thus a coffee powerhouse was born,” she says.

“This is just one of the many factors that came together over the past four decades to see tremendous growth in the Robusta sector.”

Back to origin

Robusta’s ability to flourish in a wider variety of environments is due to its increased genetic diversity. Unlike Arabica, which is believed to have spontaneously originated in the mountain forests of Ethiopia, Robusta is said to have more centres of origin and is thought to have developed in a range of different environments.

Despite this, Neuschwander says the commercial trade of Robusta is four centuries behind that of Arabica, hence its slower rise in popularity.

“We’ve had about 400 more years of commercial trade with Arabica than we do with Robusta, and that has led to all sorts of differences in how we think about and experience the two species,” she says.

“The commercial trade of Arabica started about 500 years ago, whereas Robusta was only about 100 years. Therefore, we have less experience with the cultivation of Robusta and adapting it to different environments. We also have less experience researching it. For all those reasons, Robusta is often thought of as the ‘newer’ species, even though genetically it’s much older.”

The significant commercial development of Robusta didn’t start until the early 20th century, when the trade of Arabica was disrupted by a major outbreak of coffee leaf rust, a disease caused by the Hemileia Vastatrix fungus. When looking for a solution, Robusta was put forward as a similar plant that didn’t seem to be so badly affected by the disease.

“Robusta, in part because of its higher caffeine content, is more resistant to some diseases and pests,” says Neuschwander.

Robusta saves the day?

A century later, some players in the coffee industry are once again looking to Robusta to save the day. Following a research study by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) predicting land area suitable for Arabica coffee production will be halved by 2050, producers are looking for alternative ways to continue to meet the world’s demand for coffee.

Because of its natural resistance to some diseases and pesticides, and its ability to grow in hotter, more humid climates, many are asking if Robusta is the answer.

“There’s a common, vague understanding that maybe Robusta is better for climate change,” says Neuschwander.

“Part of that stems from the idea that the world is getting hotter and Robusta does better than Arabica in warmer climates, but it turns out very hot temperatures can also badly affect Robusta production.”

She stresses that Robusta isn’t a silver bullet for climate change, but it does provide options. As well as having some resistance to heat and disease, many Robusta varieties have a larger yield than Arabicas and production costs are often lower.

“The important thing to understand is that there’s not a single solution for climate change: instead, farmers need options,” she says.

“Humans have done a very good job of spreading coffee all over the world, so farmers grow coffee in all sorts of different environments and circumstances. They need options to meet the different needs of the environments in which they are farming in and the markets they’re selling into. This is where Robusta could help some farmers.”

However, switching from growing Arabica to Robusta is not a simple swap.

“If you’re a farmer, it’s not easy to change your trees from one species to another. It is possible to adjust and adapt, but the requirements to do so for a farmer are very high and capital intensive,” Neuschwander says.

“The trees need to be managed a little bit differently, which involves training. You have to have access to different markets. And there is a political context too, for example some countries don’t allow Robusta production because of its association with lower quality.”

Despite this, she says for farmers facing extreme weather events or a shifting climate that’s making Arabica production increasingly difficult, switching to Robusta may be easier than changing to an entirely new crop such as macadamia.

Star quality

While perceived quality might hold some producers back from adopting Robusta, Neuschwander believes the simple fact that humans have a longer relationship with Arabica is one of the reasons it’s often favoured.

“There is a general consensus that Robusta doesn’t taste as good as Arabica. One reason for this is because we apply higher standards for Arabica quality and we remove the defective beans through sorting,” she says.

“Farmers, traders, and buyers have been working to make Arabica taste better for a long time through enhanced farming techniques, post-harvest preparation, and quality standards. It’s only very recently, in the past 15 years, that international quality standards for higher-quality Robustas have been introduced.”

Dr Manuel Diaz, coffee quality expert and Senior Consultant at Ona Consulting, says that, although the commodity segment of Robusta is creating incentives for volume not quality, there is a premium sector emerging.

“A small segment of premium Robusta coffee farmers is following the specialty Arabica trends, improving genetic materials, and post-harvest processing for high quality,” he says.

“Through careful processing, Robusta can offer intense mouthfeel and crema, and bitter-related flavours, such as chocolate, forest fruits, and resinous. In particular, Robustas can impart complex spiciness to coffee flavour.”

With interest in specialty Robustas rising and the species even being showcased in the upper echelons of the industry at the World Barista Championships in recent years, Diaz believes high-quality Robustas will become even more popular in competitions and premium products.

“Prejudice and stigma are preventing faster progress. In blind trials, consumers prefer blends of Arabica with Robusta compared to only Arabica, but the name Robusta still causes rejection,” he says.

“An increasing number of farmers in Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, and other Latin-American countries manage to sell high quality Robustas at C+ prices but well below specialty Arabicas. By unit of volume, and by monetary value, high quality robustas can deliver more coffee flavour than woody, flat Arabicas.”

Robusta revolution

One person who noticed the prejudice towards Robusta in the specialty coffee industry and wanted to make a difference was Sahra Nguyen. A first generation Vietnamese American, Nguyen was a journalist and documentary filmmaker with no experience in coffee when she was catapulted into the industry in 2016.

“As a journalist in New York City, I spent a lot of time in coffee shops. I noticed the rise in popularity of Vietnamese iced coffee and Asian drinks in general. It captured my attention and I did a bit of research into the industry. I discovered that Vietnam was the second largest producer of coffee in the world, but I couldn’t find any roasters in the United States (US) selling a single origin Vietnamese coffee,” she says.

“I felt there was an injustice happening that was excluding and exploiting the Robusta growing community, so I started my own coffee company.”

Nguyen says she felt the human lens was missing from the Robusta conversation.

“When we perpetuate this binary of superiority and inferiority between Arabica and Robusta it’s deeply harmful to Robusta growing communities around the world. It excludes them from the opportunity to elevate their livelihoods through advancing quality coffee production,” she says.

The same year, she got on a plane for her first sourcing trip to establish direct-trade relationships with farmers in Vietnam, and soon after learned how to roast coffee. Two years later, in 2018, Nguyen Coffee Supply was officially launched as the first specialty Vietnamese coffee importer and roaster in the US.

Nguyen says, at first, starting a quality-focused Robusta coffee company was challenging.

“We faced a lot of resistance from people in the industry, because we came out with something that was completely different to the status quo. We received a lot of judgment and scepticism from coffee professionals,” she says.

Despite this, she persevered and it paid off. The company, which started as purely e-commerce, recently launched in 2600 grocery stores across the US and roasts around 4000 pounds of coffee each week. It offers 100 per cent Robusta, 100 per cent Arabica, and Robusta-Arabica blends, as well as a line of ready-to-drink 100 per cent Robusta cold-brew cans.

“We created innovative and delicious Robusta-focused products to show people the possibilities with Robusta coffee. That’s why we were very adamant to go 100 per cent Robusta for our cans to help expand the experience and shift perception,” says Nguyen.

“Robusta broadens the coffee experience for the entire coffee community. It has a higher caffeine content, so if you’re someone who wants energy, you can get it naturally from Robusta. Its flavour profile is also very different from Arabica: it’s much bolder, richer, and dark chocolatey, so it’s a great choice for anyone who prefers this coffee profile – with or without milk. Coffee is personal and consumers should have the choice to choose between both Arabica and Robusta profiles, rather than have the industry dictate which bean is superior.”

The future of Robusta

In keeping with its focus on the coffee plant and its variety development, World Coffee Research is preparing to launch its first ever Robusta breeding program. The long-term multi-decadal study will be similar in design to its Arabica Innovea breeding program, which brings together multiple countries that grow the species in order to deliver new varieties.

“The aim is to produce new Robusta varieties that meet the needs of both the farmer, the country, and the consumer,” says Neuschwander.

“We’ll use diverse germplasm (genetically diverse trees that haven’t been crossed together before), and distribute the resulting populations to network partners for them to grow and evaluate. Then, using modern breeding methods to help speed up the process of selecting winners, we will support our partners to release new varietals to ensure continually better plants are available for farmers.”

The project is due to launch in 2025. For the team at World Coffee Research, the network is a huge step forward in the advancement of Robusta.

“If you look at any crop, one of the markers of success for growers is how much innovation has happened with the most basic technology that farmers use – the plant,” she says.

“The performance gains we will be able to make through a dedicated, long-term, and collaborative global breeding network are exciting. One reason why there is so much upside is because coffee lags behind other crops. If you take apples, for example, more than 5000 varieties have been released by breeding programs around the world over the past 20 years. For coffee, the number of internationally registered new varieties is about 110, with only 10 of those Robustas. However, we can adapt the learning of breeders in other crops to make up for lost time.

“It’s exciting but also urgent. With the variability of climate conditions continuing to grow, coffee farmers need more options.”

The post The rise of Robusta coffee appeared first on Global Coffee Report.

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