world origin map

world origin map

coffee-origins-map

Brazil

Brazil’s annual coffee production accounts for approximately one third of the world’s supply, making it the leading exporter and producer of coffee beans in the world.
Brazil’s hot and humid climate combined with its nutrient enriched soils makes it an ideal place for coffee plants to thrive. However, the lack of high altitude arable land results in coffee crops with a less acidic taste. Brazil is also the only high volume coffee bean producing country that is exposed to frost risk. In 1974 and 1994 frost was responsible for elevating the worldwide coffee bean futures prices.
The Arabica variety represents up to 85% of Brazil’s annual turnover of coffee bean production. This variety was first introduced into Brazil in the 18^th century by Francisco de Mello Palheta, who brought seeds and shoots from Cayenne, French Guinea. The particular specie introduced by de Mello Palheta once upon a time came from the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens which had received an infant plant in 1706 from Java.
Of the many coffee types produced in Brazil, Santos is of most importance. Santos coffee beans are cultivated in the state of Sao Paolo and were derived from the Bourbon variety of Arabica coffee beans.
Rio coffee is also prominently grown in Brazil but is classified as of lower quality and therefore has a cheaper market price.
The Robusta coffee bean variety makes up nearly 15% of the total coffee crop production annually.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: BOURBON SANTOS, BAHIA & RIO.

Cameroon

Soil rich in volcanic minerals, sufficient rainfall and high altitude land all lend themselves to making Cameroon an ideal location for coffee bean cultivation and farming.
Coffee was introduced to Cameroon by Germans settlers in 1905 but it wasn’t until 1929 that the Arabica coffee bean variety was produced and cultivated successfully.
The Robusta and Arabica coffee bean varieties make up a majority of Cameroon’s annual coffee bean harvest. Robusta is predominately grown in the north of the country whilst the Arabica variety is cultivated in high altitude regions in the east, north-west and west of the country.
In the early 1980’s, coffee was considered to be one of Cameroon’s primary export commodities and was subsidised heavily by the government. In 1988 the government removed these valuable subsidies and small farmers were subsequently forced to either diversify and grow other types of produce, or abandon their crops. This led to the coffee trees competing for soil nutrients with other food crops planted in between them, decreasing the overall quality of the coffee bean output.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: ROBUSTA & ARABICA.

Columbia

Coffee is said to have been first brought into Colombia in around 1730 by Jose Gumilla, a Jesuit priest. The very first coffee bean crops were cultivated in the eastern province of Columbia.
The European Union granted Colombia with a designation of origin for its coffee bean production in September 2007.
Colombia is now considered one of the major players in coffee production at an estimated 10,500,000 bags of coffee beans per annum – approximately 15% of the world’s total coffee supply (3 billion or so Arabica coffee trees). This places Columbia second to Brazil. In 1992, at its peak, Colombia’s total coffee bean export volume was close to approximately 17,000,000 bags. The principal customers and importers of Colombian coffee beans are the United States, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Colombian coffee is known the world over for its high quality and distinctive taste attributed to by the country’s ideal growing conditions and the particular farming practices implemented. One such successful farming method is the growing of coffee trees under the shade of rubber and banana plants.
The finest grade of coffee beans in Columbia is the Supremo blend.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: SUPREMO, MEDDELIN, CATURRA, TYPICA, MARAGOGYPE & BOURBON.

Costa Rica

The first coffee trees in Costa Rica arrived from Cuba in 1779. Now Costa Rica is the ninth largest producer and exporter of coffee worldwide.
Costa Rican coffee beans are generally grown in farming areas on the outer fringe of the capital San Jose. Co-operatives of small farmers pooled together are the lifeblood of the Costa Rican coffee trade, which has also grown exponentially due to its quality and modern farming practices.
Apart from the area that the coffee is grown, altitude plays a major part in shaping the flavour of Costa Rican coffee. A very hard bean suggests that the coffee bean was grown in altitudes exceeding 3,900 feet and semi-hard beans signify growth in an altitude range of 3,500 to 3,900 feet.
Cultivation and production of the Robusta variety of coffee is prohibited in Costa Rica due to a government ban which only allows Arabica to be cultivated and produced.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: TRES RIOS, ALAJUELA, SAN MARCOS DE TARRAZU & HEREDIA.

Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire)

The Ivory Coast is the primary producer of coffee in Africa with about half its population employed by the coffee industry.
In the 1990’s, the Ivory Coast was the world’s fifth largest producer of coffee beans and the second largest producer of Robusta. It has since declined from these levels because of the country’s focus on volume rather than overall coffee bean quality together with lack of planning and infrastructure spending. This has not been helped by long periods of drought in Cote d’Ivoire which have wiped out many small coffee farmers. Many farmers have also diversified or even shifted to cacao production as it is less labour intensive and more profitable.
The Ivory Coast produces approximately 3.3 million bags of coffee per annum down from a peak period of almost 5 million bags annually in the mid 1990’s.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: ROBUSTA.

El Salvador

Coffee trees were originally introduced to El Salvador in 1740 from the Caribbean.
El Salvador is currently the sixth largest exporter of coffee to the United States and the fourteenth largest producer in the world. Although El Salvador has the right agricultural elements to grow perfect coffee, its inability to show good results in terms of quality output is mainly due to the country’s instability (politics, tax and war) and lack of funding to propel the industry forward.
25% of the total population are employed by the coffee industry with coffee representing over 60% of El Salvador’s total exports.
The best grade of El Salvadoran coffee is labeled high-grown with decent body and an average flavour.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: PACARAMA & BOURBON, PACAS, TYPICA & ARABIGO.

Ecuador

Coffee was first introduced to Ecuador in 1860. Coffee trees replaced much of the cacao and banana trees overcome by pests and disease in the early 1920’s and today Ecuador stands as the one of the largest exporter of coffee in the world.
Most coffee is grown and cultivated in the province of Manabi. The harvesting of coffee cherries in Ecuador is carried out in two periods the first period requires the fruit to be picked by hand between June and late August and the second by the end of season.
Arabica Lavado, Arabica Natural and Robusta are the three most popular coffee bean varieties grown in Ecuador.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: ARABICA NATURAL, ARABICA LAVADO & ROBUSTA.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia has its place in history as the home of Arabica coffee. In particular the word ‘coffee’ was derived from the name of the province Kaffa.
Presently, Ethiopia is the seventh largest producer of coffee on the world stage with a volume of more than 3.8 million coffee bags per annum made possible by 12 million Ethiopians working in the coffee industry. It is the largest producer of Arabica coffee beans and the second largest producer of all coffee beans in Africa (second to the Ivory Coast).
Ethiopia has the highest per capita rate of domestic coffee consumption in Africa.
Ethiopian coffee is renowned for its high quality and remarkable flavours.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: ETHIOPIAN HARRAR, SIDAMO, ETHIOPIAN YIRGACHEFFE & LONGBERRY.

Guatemala

Jesuits introduced coffee to Guatemala in 1750, but it wasn’t until the 1800’s that German immigrants commenced solid coffee bean cultivation and production.
The Guatemalan volcanic slope high-grown coffee beans are amongst the best in the world when it comes to overall quality.
At one stage, a quarter of the working population was employed by the coffee industry, which represented 70% of Guatemala’s total exports. Presently export coffee volumes have more than halved to just over 32% of total exports but still places Guatemala as the sixth largest producer of coffee worldwide. The annual output of coffee in Guatemala today is approximately 3.5 million bags per annum, sourced mainly from small to mid-size coffee farms.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: GUATEMALAN ANTIGUA, ARABIGO, TYPICA, BOURBON, ATITLAN & HUEHUETENANGO, MARAGOGYPE.

Honduras

Honduras coffee trees originated from the country’s neighbours, El Salvador, Brazil and Costa Rica.
Honduras is the eighth largest coffee producing country in the world with over 175,000 hectares of farmland reserved for the cultivation and fostering of coffee beans.
Honduras’ land reservation scheme has been orchestrated by its government to reduce the rate of unemployment and help increase the country’s American Dollar based contracts.
Coffee from Honduras is strictly high-grown, generally ordinary in quality and wet-processed, making it a good foundation bean for blending.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: CANTURRA, TYPICA & BOURBON.

India

Legend has it that India is the origin of early coffee cultivation (east of Arabia).
India is at present the third largest coffee producer in Asia (producing over 25% of Asiatic coffee) and one of the largest world-wide producers. Today India’s coffee production is well over 3.8 million bags per annum but is under the strict control of the Indian Coffee Board which has played a part in the reduction of the overall bean quality.
Coffee production in India only represents approximately 1% of the country’s total exports, and is typically made up of the Arabica varieties and the ever-growing Robusta coffee bean specie.
India’s specialty coffee bean is the 'Monsoon Malabar' which is a monsoonal coffee as a result of watering by storm and lengthy gestation periods.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: MYOSORE, MONSOON MALABAR.

Indonesia

Indonesia is the second largest coffee producing nation in Asia and the third largest producer in the world with an annual volume of over 6.8 million bags of coffee (7% of the world supply).
All Arabica coffee crops in Indonesia originally came from the Island of Java, introduced in the 17^th century by the Dutch. These crops were destroyed in 1877 by Hemelia Vastarix, a fungus caused by coffee leaf rust.
As a consequence, the Indonesian coffee industry from that point on changed its production plan. High quality Arabica is still cultivated in Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Flores, but Robusta presently represents the majority (90%) of coffee crop output, making Indonesia a primary world-wide producer of Robusta.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: JAVA, SUMTRA & SULAWESI.

Jamaica

The majority of coffee produced in Jamaica is Arabica coffee, in particular a variety labelled Typica.
In 1725, Jamaica’s Blue Mountain coffee was introduced from Martinique. It has been one of the most expensive and highly sought after coffee bean in the world (80% of all Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is exported to Japan).
The Blue Mountains are located between Kingston and Port Antonio to the north of Jamaica. There you will find some of the highest mountains in the Caribbean with peaks of 2,300 metres. The combination of high altitude land, nutrient enriched soil, high rainfall and exceptional drainage makes it an ideal place to produce high quality coffee beans.
In 1944, the Central Coffee Clearing House was established by the Jamaican government to oversee, inspect and enforce strict standards to how Jamaican coffee is produced and harvested.
Not all coffee produced in Jamaica is exported; some is retained and consumed domestically (some is also used to produce the local liquor, Tia Maria).

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: BLUE MOUNTAIN & HIGH MOUNTAIN.

Kenya

Kenya is the sixth largest producer of all coffees in Africa and the eighteenth largest producer world-wide. Arabica coffee is almost the only variety produced in Kenya, making it the second largest producer of Arabica in Africa, second only to Ethiopia.
Coffee was introduced into Kenya by French Holy Ghost Fathers from Reunion Island in around the mid 1800’s.
Kenya’s coffee industry is experienced and utilises refined modern methods of farming practice and production, which has greatly increased its coffee output quality and consistency. Approximately 70% of Kenyan coffee is grown and produced by small farms rather than large coffee estates.
Kenyan coffee is generally wet-processed and classified by the size of the coffee bean. For example, AA represents the largest coffee bean size, followed by A or B which denote smaller sized coffee beans.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: KENYA AA.

Madagascar

The history of coffee in Madagascar has not been one of smooth sailing, to say the least.
In 1878 the Arabica agricultural coffee region was destroyed by disease and pests. The Arabica crops were later replaced by the Robusta variety, introduced by Liberia. The first season Robusta crop was unsuccessful and the second crop experienced a decrease in output.
Since the 1900’s both the Kouillou variety (from the Ivory Coast) and the Robusta variety (brought in from the Congo) have been introduced into Madagascar. They too have been exposed to mother nature’s fury in the form of frequent hurricanes.
In the 1980’s, coffee was the leading export crop of the decade ($151 million record profit was made in 1986) but gradually diminished due to poor planning, investment and infrastructure.
Out of the 103 described species of coffee (Coffea) in the world, Madagascar varieties represent 9 species, all of which are part of the Coffea subgenus Baracoffea family of coffee bean.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: ROBUSTA & ARABICA.

Mexico

Coffee was introduced into Mexico from Antilles in the 18^th Century but was not exported in high volumes until the late 1870’s. Mexico is currently the largest producer of coffee for the United States and is ranked the fourth largest coffee grower in the world with over 5 million bags produced annually.
Coffee represents approximately one third of all Mexican agricultural exports which include varieties such as Bourbon, Catura, Mundo, Nuevo and Maragogype. Garnica, a new variety of coffee bean, was developed in Mexico.
Most of Mexico’s coffee is produced by over 100,000 small farms with a majority located in the south of the country where altitudes range between 400 to 1700m.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: ALTURA & OAXACA PLUMA.

Nicaragua

Coffee beans were introduced into Nicaragua in the mid 19^th century. There are now over 316 million coffee trees in Nicaragua, cultivated on small to medium sized farms.
Nicaragua stands as one of the largest producer of coffee in the world with coffee being one of its three major export commodities. It is considered to be the rising star of Central American coffee producing nations, with substantial development around investment, planning and infrastructure with a view to propelling quality output in the future.
The most common coffee produced is Arabica, which include the Bourbon, Typica, Catura and Maragogype bean varieties.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: BOURBON, TYPICA, CATURA & MARAGOGOGYPE.

Peru

Peru dedicates about 5% of its arable land to coffee bean production and is positioned as the seventeenth largest coffee producer world-wide.
Peru’s low levels of production are mainly due to political and government restrictions on farmers own land.
Peru’s coffee bean output is of medium to high quality attributed to the farming practices applied, the nutrient enriched fertile soil and coffee tree growth locations. The cultivation of high quality Peruvian coffee is located on the eastern slopes of the Andes between a range of 1,500 to 2,000 metres above sea level. In Peru there are about 150,000 small farms that still utilise traditional farming practices, such as growing coffee under Inga trees which provides nitrogen to the coffee tree.
Peruvian coffee is sometimes compared to Mexican coffee beans as it is a good variety to blend.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: TUNKI, TYPICA.

Philippines

The cultivation and export of coffee beans was once a primary trade commodity in the Philippines which had it placed as the fourth largest coffee producer in the world 200 or so years ago.
Today the Philippines has scaled back production output. Whilst it is still a big player as the third largest producer in Asia, it has fallen to sixteenth largest producer world-wide.
Considerable efforts and developments are now being made to revive the coffee industry in the Philippines, with the majority of coffee cultivation taking place in the mountainous regions of Batangas, Benguet, Apayao, Davao, Claveria, Kalinga and Bukidnon. The Philippines currently produces approximately 30,000 tonnes of coffee annually – up by 6,000 tonnes just in the space of three years.
The Philippines predominately produces Robusta but also produces Arabica, Liberica and Excelsa varieties. The Excelsa variety of coffee bean was brought into the Philippines by a Spanish Franciscan Monk in 1740 but by 1889 the variety was all but destroyed by Hemileia Vastatrix (a fungus caused by coffee leaf rust).

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: EXCELSA & LIBERICA.

Uganda

Uganda first discovered Robusta coffee in 1860, and is now ranked as one of largest coffee producer in the world.
Both Robusta and Arabica coffee beans are produced in Uganda. Uganda exports Robusta, which constitutes 85% of the country’s total output, to Germany, America & France, and is the largest exporter to the British Commonwealth. Arabica is almost exclusively exported to Germany and only accounts for approximately 5% of the total coffee volume annually.
In 1991, the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) was established following the lifting of restrictions imposed by government in the coffee industry. The UCDA was incorporated to oversee and promote the expansion of the coffee industry through planning, research, marketing and quality assurance.

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: BUGISU.

Venezuela

Historically, once upon a time, Venezuela was placed very close to Colombia when it came to coffee production. However in the late 1960’s and 70’s, as petroleum became the number one profit making tool, the government put coffee cultivation to the side.
Today, Venezuela is the twentieth largest coffee producing country in the world, producing only 1% of the world’s total coffee supply with a majority of coffee consumed domestically. Because petroleum failed to bring prosperity, the government began actively promoting the coffee industry. Coffee is now the country’s primary exported commodity thanks to a large percentage of the population working within the coffee industry.
Prime quality Venezuelan coffee comes from the western region of the country, the area that borders its neighbour, Colombia. Coffee from this area is labelled Maracaibos (named after the port it is shipped from).

PROMINENT COFFEE BEAN VARIETIES: MARACAIBO CUCUTA, MERIDA, TRUJILLO & TACHIRA.

Vietnam

Coffee was first introduced into Vietnam in the mid 1860’s by French missionaries but production and cultivation of coffee beans did not really engage until the early 1980’s.
In the mid 1990’s, Vietnam experienced accelerated growth in the production and cultivation of coffee, but at a pace too unsustainable to maintain strict consistency on quality output.
Presently Vietnam is the largest coffee producer in Asia and one of the top producers in the world behind Indonesia.
The primary coffee bean cultivated in Vietnam is Robusta with an annual volume of more than 5 million bags per annum.