There are two major species of coffee grown in the world, arabica and robusta. One has long been seen as the superior strain — why else would "100% Arabica" show up on so many bags of beans?
But the age of arabica may soon be in decline, as climate change forces the fickle plants off of farms.
Robusta beans — climate-resilient, more highly caffeinated but long derided by the industry as bitter and inferior tasting — are poised to take their place.
"In the specialty coffee industry, there's a lot more openness to the idea of robusta — there are significant challenges with arabica coffee with climate change in the future," said Miguel Meza, owner of Minneapolis-based Paradise Coffee Roasters, which has been roasting high-grade robusta for years. "This has to be part of our future."
Trend forecasting company WGSN says that transition has already begun. It picked robusta as one of the top food and beverage trends to take off in 2022 as robusta crops become more refined and better-tasting.
"When we look globally, we see signals of this being picked up, and more entrepreneurs are bringing that robusta crop into the United States," said Kara Nielsen, WGSN's director of food and drink. "We'll see interest in specialty robusta, then we may see some things in cans, then in another year at Starbucks — that's how these things trickle out."
Though it already accounts for 40% of the world's coffee production and is most commonly used in instant coffee, robusta remains relatively unknown among American coffee drinkers and has long been maligned by specialty roasters who prefer the nuanced flavors arabica provides.
"The bulk of the coffee-drinking public probably isn't aware of robusta, so it has the opportunity to be defined for the first time as a specialty coffee with its own characteristics," Nielsen said. "Over the longer term, we may see the larger coffee companies start introducing some of these robusta beans or blends."