Coffee Hero

“To me, Robusta just tastes dirty.”  So said a professional roaster I interviewed several years ago.  In his book, ‘quality Robusta’ is an oxymoron.

An importer I once interviewed disagreed.  “We’ve just been trained to have an Arabica palate,” he said.  He  had tried several Robustas that he deemed outstanding, including one that he was willing to pit against Jamaica Blue Mountain in a cupping.

It was time for me to make up my own mind.  Is the Robusta bean inherently inferior to the Arabica bean?  I’m well-read on the debates about Arabica vs. Robusta, the world’s two most common species of coffee beans.   I’ve also tried Robusta coffee before, but never anything that claimed to be high-end.  I ordered unroasted Guatemalan Robusta from Dean’s Beans, which comes with this assurance on the label:

This is the power kicker to add to any darker roast for a caffeine high and a creamy finish. We only select robustas that we can actually drink straight, not the swill that the major roasters use for filler. There is a difference!

A Robusta that could be drunk straight?  Did it exist?  For $4.50 a pound (no shipping charges that week), I was willing to find out.  With my absolute confidence in Dean’s Beans, I was willing to assume that this is about as good as Robusta is going to get.

Photo Roasting Coffee #2 by Flickr user Jedi.

My Verdict

I’m siding with the crowd on this issue — straight-up Robusta is not in Arabica’s league.

I don’t fully agree with the above-quoted roaster; “dirty” isn’t the word I would use to describe Robusta’s taste.  But there is definitely a noticeable taste common to the Robusta-based coffees I’ve tried — “chemical” is the best word I can think of.  To me, it tastes like a cheap, artificial flavor has been added.  (No such thing has actually happened; that’s a simile, mind you.)  Could Robusta appeal to somebody else’s palate?   I imagine so, but my bet is that on its own,  Robusta would lose a vast majority of taste-tests against any half-decent Arabica bean.

For the record, I home-roasted the Robusta beans, brewed them in a drip-pot, and drank the coffee with no cream or sugar.    In restaurants, I have tried Thai- and Vietnamese-style iced coffees that have a Robusta taste, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit.   I also have yet to combine the Robusta I roasted with Arabica beans to make an espresso blend, the usual fate of high-end Robusta. The beans I ordered will not go to waste.

But I am now satisfied that Robusta will never cut it for me as a standalone coffee bean.

Sources:

Arabica vs. Robusta: No Contest — INeedCoffee-style, by Sandi J. Holland, 2002

Arabica vs. Robusta: No Contest — Atlantic-style, by Jerry Baldwin, 2009

Tags: dean's beans, home roasting, homeroasting heretic, robusta