Arabica Coffee

Arabica is Coffea arabica, the species of coffee plant behind almost every specialty coffee you can buy. It’s native to the highland forests of Ethiopia, it’s believed to be the first coffee ever farmed, and it still makes up just over half of the world’s coffee. This page covers where it came from, where and how it grows, how it tastes and how it differs from robusta.

The short version

• A species, not a variety: Coffea arabica, one of two coffee species grown on a large scale.
• From Ethiopia, by way of Yemen, then around the world from the late 1600s.
• 52.8% of the world’s coffee in 2025/26, the USDA says; robusta made up the rest.
• Grown high: usually 1,200–1,500 metres, at 15–24 °C.
• Sweeter and brighter than robusta, with about half the caffeine.

What is arabica coffee?

Arabica is one of 131 species in the coffee genus, Coffea, and one of only two grown commercially on a global scale; the other is robusta. Carl Linnaeus gave it its scientific name in 1753.

Unusually, it is a hybrid. Arabica carries four sets of chromosomes, 44 in all, because it formed from a cross between two wild species, Coffea canephora (robusta) and Coffea eugenioides, somewhere between about 1.08 million and 543,000 years ago, Wikipedia says. Unlike robusta, an arabica tree can pollinate its own flowers whereas robusta needs pollen from a different plant, World Coffee Research notes.

Where does arabica come from?

Ethiopia, where the species is native and where most of its genetic diversity is found. From there the story runs through Yemen, according to World Coffee Research’s history of the species:

Date	Event
Before the late 1600s	Seeds taken from Ethiopia’s south-western forests to Yemen and farmed there
1670	Baba Budan takes seeds from Yemen to India
1696 and 1699	The Dutch send seeds from India’s Malabar coast to Java
1706	A single plant goes from Java to Amsterdam’s botanical garden
1708–1718	The French take Yemeni coffee to Bourbon island, now La Réunion
1714	Amsterdam gives a plant to Louis XIV of France
1719–1727	Typica reaches Suriname, French Guiana and northern Brazil
1860	Bourbon first reaches the Americas, near Campinas, Brazil
1920s	The Timor Hybrid, an arabica–robusta cross, is found on Timor

Source: World Coffee Research, History of Arabica.

Those two lines, Typica and Bourbon, are the parents of most of the arabica grown today. In Brazil, the world’s biggest arabica producer, 97.55% of coffee cultivars descend from them, World Coffee Research says. The Timor Hybrid brought robusta’s resistance to coffee leaf rust into arabica and is the parent of the Catimor and Sarchimor groups of varieties.

Where is arabica grown?

Across the tropics. These were the five largest arabica producers in 2025/26:

Country	Arabica, 2025/26
Brazil	38.0 million bags
Colombia	12.5 million bags
Ethiopia	11.56 million bags
Honduras	5.53 million bags
Peru	4.76 million bags
World	94.44 million bags

Source: USDA, Coffee: World Markets and Trade, July 2026 (60 kg bags). The USDA forecasts a rebound to 105.9 million bags in 2026/27, led by a 47.5 million-bag Brazilian crop.

Arabica is usually grown at 1,200 to 1,500 metres, though plantations run from sea level to 2,800 metres. It does best at an average of 15–24 °C and with 1.2–1.8 metres of rain spread through the year, prefers light shade, and tolerates cold but not frost, Wikipedia says. Trees flower three to four years after planting; farmed trees grow to about 5 metres and are often pruned to 2 metres for picking.

What does arabica taste like?

Sweeter, brighter and more varied than robusta. Beans from robusta tend to have lower acidity, more bitterness and a more woody, less fruity flavour than arabica, according to a 2020 review of coffee flavour cited by Wikipedia. Arabica also carries more sugar, about 6–9% against robusta’s 3–7%.

Gourmet coffees are almost all high-quality arabica, Wikipedia says, naming Jamaican Blue Mountain, Colombian Supremo, Costa Rica’s Tarrazú, Guatemalan Antigua and Ethiopian Sidamo among the best known. Within the species, origin, variety, processing and roast shape the cup at least as much as the name on the bag.

How much caffeine does arabica have?

About half as much as robusta. The figures vary by source and by plant:

Source	Arabica	Robusta
Wikipedia (Coffea canephora)	1.5%	2.7%
Wikipedia (Coffea arabica)	12 mg per gram of dry bean (1.2%)	Not given
Dessalegn et al., 2008: 42 Ethiopian arabica genotypes, green beans	0.91–1.32% (9.1–13.2 g/kg)	Not tested

Sources as listed. A naturally low-caffeine arabica strain from Brazil contains only 0.76 mg per gram, Wikipedia adds.

How much of the world’s coffee is arabica?

Just over half, but the figure you’ll see quoted depends on its age:

Source	Arabica’s share
USDA, July 2026 (2025/26 crop)	52.8% (94.4 of 178.8 million bags)
USDA forecast for 2026/27	55.8% (105.9 of 189.7 million bags)
Wikipedia, Coffea arabica	About 60%
Wikipedia, Coffea canephora	Robusta about 45–46%, arabica most of the rest
Coffee Review glossary	About 70%

Robusta’s share has risen from about 25% to 40% of world production since the early 1990s, World Coffee Research reports, so older figures overstate arabica. The USDA’s report is the most recent count.

Is arabica endangered?

In the wild, yes. The IUCN Red List assesses Coffea arabica as endangered, Wikipedia notes, despite a wild population of 13.5 to 19.5 billion plants. It grows under the forest canopy in Ethiopia, so deforestation and climate change threaten it, and one estimate cited by Wikipedia has wild populations falling 50–80% by 2088. Farmed arabica faces coffee leaf rust, which cut Central America’s production by 16% in 2012–13.

Arabica and other coffee guides

• Robusta coffee: the other main species, and how it compares.
• Washed process coffee: the clean, bright way most fine arabica is prepared.
• Natural process coffee: dried in the whole fruit, for fruity, winey cups.
• Coffee in Ethiopia: arabica’s homeland.