What is the difference between Arabica and Robusta beans?

Because Arabica beans are slower growing, lower in yield and have a more complex flavour and aroma than Robusta, market forces tend to push “Quality” expectation towards the more expensive Arabic beans. The Sri Lankan coffee we serve is 100% Arabica largely because we want to be associated with the highest quality standards and it’s Sri Lanka’s most common harvest, but this is a little harsh on the Robusta bean.

Robusta is a bolder flavour, has almost double the caffeine of Arabica beans and more creme is produced making a very powerful espresso favoured by Italians, especially in a dark roast.

Arabica is more suited to a medium or lighter roast because of the nuanced flavours, which would be overpowered in a dark roast, so we tend to serve medium roast Arabica beans.

Commonly, unless a coffee producer is promoting a single bean variety, they will quietly mix Arabica and Robusta beans together to give you the best of both worlds - wonderful flavour with a decent kick of caffeine and a nice creme. This will also enable a manufacturer to get consistency from batch to batch. Single bean, particularly single source, can vary batch to batch due to changes in conditions such as weather or storage. That is great for a purest, but not good for consistency. So although we will always sell single bean roasts rather than blends in our cafes we do understand and appreciate blended beans. 

Soon we will create our own signature roasts, and we would certainly love to experiment with separate Arabica, Robusta and mixed roasts.