One word: quality. You may have been a long time coffee drinker and still feel mystified by the different beans that make up coffee, as that is fairly common among coffee consumers. All you need is a little education, and you will be selecting and discussing the best quality coffee beans in no time! The latest news is that as a coffee lover, you should be buying 100% Arabica beans as they are the higher quality bean, and Robusta is seen as the cheaper filler. Arabica and Robusta are the two major coffee plant species out there, and both have very distinct qualities that set them apart.
Robusta Beans: The Easier Find
Robusta beans thrive much better and are easier to harvest than the Arabica beans, meaning that they need less care and are less sensitive to climate so they will always be a guaranteed harvest. This plant will actually yield much more beans than Arabica, but its down side is that the brew produced by these beans taste bitter and sour. The beans themselves are much higher in caffeine for the java junkies out there, but they remain lower in caliber. Often, roasters will blend the Robusta beans within their roasts so that it has a higher caffeine content and bolder taste, but you will mainly find Robusta used as a cheap filler to cut the wholesale coffee cost and product. It is a case of taste and flavor being sacrificed for cost, sadly. That is what you will find in most of the canned coffee found in supermarkets because it will also hide any hints of staleness in the coffee that may have been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long.
Arabica Beans: The Beans of Excellence
Arabica beans are grown in high altitudes and are very delicate in their harvesting process. Because of the constant care in their growth phase, these beans offer much more astonishing flavor profiles and exceptional bold notes in the brew. You will most often see Arabica beans labeled as gourmet coffee, and they have about half of the caffeine that is found in the Robusta beans. Pure Arabica beans are the most rare and valued in the coffee variety and can be found in the more sophisticated specialty roasts.
So now it is up to you to decide where the best flavor and quality lies in your coffee choice. If you do taste the pure and fresh Arabica beans, the odds are that you will be forever changed by now knowing the difference of the lower quality coffee that is commercially sold. For all of the coffee connoisseurs out there, sampling the class and style of Arabica beans is well worth the effort.
