MILAN – Coffee professionals, scientists, and enthusiasts from across the globe gathered in Berlin for Canephorum on October 2024 for workshops, cuppings, and discussions led by scientists and industry experts centered on Canephora coffee. Canephorum, now in its third edition, is an educational event that offers a two-day program focusing on Canephora’s role in the coffee industry, covering sensory profiles, market potential, and scientific and technical innovation.
Canephorum is an initiative spearheaded by Germany-based trade company cumpa, its CEO Lukas Harbig, and Gloria Pedroza, Head of Quality from Neumann Kaffee Gruppeand a CQI board member, as co-organizers.
We talked to them about this new possible scenarios for the entire coffee sector.
What can we tell about Canephora’s journey from traditional cultivation to Fine Robusta, focusing on quality developments?
Lukas: “We have to consider that Canephora was only introduced 130 years ago, so it is a fairly young cultivar, and this resulted in it being used to compensate to a certain extent for the loss of coffee volumes in the world when the coffee leaf rust threatened arabica with extinction. It was really a matter of producing large quantities at the expense of quality”.
Gloria: “Arabica has several centuries of advantage over Canephora. In general, the quality and awareness around it is relatively new even for Arabica despite the fact that its history started much earlier. One must first understand what quality is: there have been criteria to classify coffee from the beginning, thinking about how to differentiate the raw material, but they were all based on physical characteristics.
The quality in the cup, which is normally what we take as a reference today, it is a discourse that started around the Canephora only a few decades ago.
From my experience in different origins and within the CQI – which has worked a lot on spreading awareness around this issue – : I appreciate my first encounter with the Canephora in Guatemala, when I started working in the coffee industry back in 1998. At the time, such small volumes of Robusta in this country were already treated as quality raw material, processed in similar ways to Arabica. The same happened in Mexico. Places like Indonesia and India started processing Canephora by applying processes at the same level as Arabica.
The concept of Fine Robusta only took off around 2003, when the CQI together with UCDA implemented a Robusta training program in Uganda.
Farmers all over the world work with Robusta: this is the reason why CQI decided to dedicate efforts to this segment as well. the initial education programme that was implemented together with the UCDA in Uganda, was the beginning for the development of the Fine Robusta protocols. It was already knowing that some Canephora was already being processed properly with good cup results.
Selective picking, depulping, controlled fermentation: these are all factors that help farmers to evolve even on Canephora (which used to be simply picked by stripping and waiting for them to dry). it is important to control the different steps to get better result in the cup.
One of CQI’s program goals is to provide a platform for farmers to have access to more market opportunities. So that’s how it started. The CQIpublished the protocol in 2009, which was refined over the years, but the main concept has remained the same until today, clearly including the sensorial parameters to evaluate the samples and the physical requirements to evaluate them.
Over the years, the tools for raising the quality of Canephora have evolved , such as the canephora Flavor Wheel, to be more precise and accurate in analysing in-cup quality. This has not been published yet.”
What are Canephora’s market potential (specially in Italy, a country where Robusta is the main ingredient of espresso blend) and emerging research? With the current price situation, is Robusta still an economical alternative to Arabica? Why buy Robusta today?
Lukas: “Arabica shows limits with respect to temperature resistance and climate change, which is challenging this species. From this point of view, Canephora has enormous potential to meet this challenge.
Arabica also grows in areas that are often very difficult to manage and, in our planet’s very limited mountainous areas, and additionally there are also other cultivars competing for this limited production area with its specific climate. For any producer, trader, roaster, the Canephora therefore represents a more sustainable solution: there are potentially larger and more widespread areas to cultivate than the increasingly small areas at high altitudes suitable for Arabica. For arabica to continue satisfying the demand for coffee, major human effort is needed to remain productive.”
Gloria: “Given the current situation, the discourse becomes more complex. But looking beyond the current market for a moment, and looking at Canephora from a sensory point of view, we are talking about a raw material that is an integral part of different cultures that consume it routinely around the world. Canephora is very popular and we have to be aware that many consumers do not like acidity in the cup.
So Canephora is an alternative that can meet the majority of tastes on a global scale. I think that if its quality continues to rise, it will also be possible increase the products that contain 100 per cent Robusta just like Arabica exists today.”
Lukas: “Actually, we are in contact with several roasters who are already doing this, naturally giving all the information as we do now with specialty coffee: origins, terroir, Finca, process, altitude, varietal group, farmer. The curiosity for details that characterises the specialty niche that is Arabica increasingly includes Canephora.”
Are there any roasting methods that could enhance the Canephora’s notes in cup?
Gloria: “We are still learning and conducting different experiments. We have found that Canephora has a higher density and therefore needs to be roasted a little darker – not burnt – and a little longer to develop. This degree of roasting helps the Robusta to develop more of its characteristics and aromatic identity.
Just as important as the roasting, however, is the extraction, which makes all the difference in the cup.
After several attempts, we realised that Robusta needs a longer contact with water than Arabica in order to express itself best. A typical brewing like filter poses more difficulties than an espresso. Full immersion methods such as French Press or Aeropress are the ones that interact best with the Canephora.
We don’t have information about the chemical reasons for this, we based our sensorial experience we noticed that an brewing time of 6 minutes favors the extraction of flavor compounds (instead of the typical 2-3 of drip or pour over technique) moreover it’s important to avoid turbulence when pouring the water (which creates a more bitter cup).”
Lukas: “Extraction is the most critical part: farmers are already doing a great job at the origins with the processes, roasters have understood how to exploit it, so now we need to create training and education also among baristas who must be able to develop the product correctly.
The Canephora is already doing great in espresso as well as in basic latte recipes, but there is a lot of room for new fermentations to be presented in filter coffee, from Aeropress and full immersion filter like the French Press. We noticed on the palate that the extraction time should reach 5 or 6 minutes (instead of the typical 3 for Arabica) and avoid the creation of turbulence (which creates a more bitter cup).
It is surprising: With Arabica it works exactly the opposite way, a long extraction time would make the drink turn out bitter and overextracted, but Canephora behaves differently, because it has a denser bean structure and therefore needs more time for the water to extract its contents.”
Why is there still this prejudice against the Canephora and its low quality compared to Arabica?
Lukas: “From the beginning, Canephora was relegated to second choice to Arabica, which was always associated with the more cultured people ready for more exotic flavours. Robusta was immediately included as that drink which was tasteless but functional, it was stronger. We then had no standards to follow for Robusta as we did for Arabica. Talking genetically, Canephora is much more complex than Arabica, but we put all of it under the “Robusta” umbrella, which is botanically wrong, not a very attractive descriptor, and legitimizing non-scientific approaches towards the species.
The marketing promise “100 per cent Arabica” has been cultivated as a synonym for quality, helping to make terrible Arabica qualities look good, and following a misleading logic. “Robusta is inferior to Arabica” is an obsolete paradigm in many ways, that needs to be rethought by the industry.”
Gloria: “Generally, the industry can be held partly responsible for creating this dynamic and prejudice.
Considering the historical background, the bad reputation around the quality of Canephora is not entirely unjustified: in the past, the focus was on volume, without much concern for quality, and on the cost- effectiveness of the product. No one was concerned with the processes as was the case with Arabica.
So it is true: the quality was not very high. However, this entered people’s minds and this defined its flavour for the whole industry: but these are not Canephora’;s own characteristics, only the consequences of bad processing.
Now we are beginning to understand the true potential of Canephora and it is important to approach it with a more open mindset, separating it from the constant comparison with Arabica.Canephora has its own strength, its own characteristics.
Fermentation, for example, is a key step in realising the potential of Canephora. It is enough, with modern techniques, to let the depulped seeds ferment for a few hours in containers together with the mucilage to achieve great results. We have seen this happen, with fruity notes in the cup.”
Where to source for a good Robusta?
Lukas and Gloria: “Great Canephora coffee can be found all over the world: many exceptional samples come from Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda. Vietnam used to be known for very bad Robusta quality in the 1980s, but now there is a considerable niche growing high quality Robusta. In Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, India, there are incredible Canephora qualities. If there is a bigger revolution, something like a Fine Robusta niche industry different from the specialty coffee industry, it is happening in South East Asia. “
How much should a high quality Robusta cost? And what are its characteristics in the cup?
Lukas and Gloria: “We have been selling very expensive Robusta, like 17 euro per kilo. This year it may not be so overpriced, but there are some greens around these prices. 12-13 euro per kilo is the starting point to pay for a good quality Robusta.”
Gloria: “The consumer is probably the smallest problem, because in reality they already love Robusta a lot, even if they don’t know it. I once attended a meeting and saw that the people who can really make a difference are the roasters: because they are the ones who really communicate the value and properties of the product. They are the ones who have to be convinced to change their prejudices.
There is still a lot to be done to find a new way of communicating Canephora, especially on the marketing side, which are still attached to the public’s bad perceptions of this raw material.
The key thing now is to create more demand, so that farmers find a valid reason to invest in process quality. Their efforts, they must have a concrete goal.”
Lukas: “I think there are a universe of brands that are ready to be discovered, considering the many origins and the immense genetic complexity of Canephora. There is so much material to actually work on in terms of marketing.”
Gloria: “Currently the mindset is changing: there are countries in North and South America that previously could not cultivate Canephora that are now open to do so. They are supporting programmes to stimulate this production. Even in Guatemala, the Canephora was never involved in the quality discourse. Now there is a competition every year dedicated to this specie, where local people use it to compete. So it has become a raw material that is perceived as valid.”
Lukas: “Imagine: There used to be one competition, that included Arabica and Canephora. Now it became two competitions. The market diversification can increase overall productivity of the coffee market. The educated roasters don’t want any Robusta anymore, they now want a Nganda Robusta from Uganda or a Conilon from Brazil, which don’t directly compete with each other. One market becomes manifold markets, and global production increases, driven by education and innovation within Canephora.”
What’s the future for Robusta?
Lukas: “I think the future of Canephora is coming. I think it is coming true, in the face of the consumption crisis and climate change. There will be other species and varieties, and innovation will help arabica to continue, but Canephora will be an option that actually represents the future in the industry, as it shows the lowest transaction costs compared to other alternatives. Canephora already represents almost half of global coffee production, now is the time to also appreciate it and to start to understand it.”
Gloria: “It is not the solution to all the problems and challenges the sector is currently facing, but certainly the Canephora is more resistant to high temperatures – although it is susceptible to sudden changes in temperature – and is a safe alternative to continue growing coffee and replace Arabica in those areas where it can no longer grow easily. I have seen farmers in Central America who are diversifying their product in the fields, not only because it is a raw material that is attracting attention lately, but because it is a solution to mitigate risks. Canephora can always be a source of volume in the face of any difficulties posed by Arabica.”
