A Guide to Different Types of Coffees
Written by Damian Papworth   
Saturday, 17 October 2009 10:11
There's more to drinking coffee than just walking into a shop and asking for a small, medium, or large cup of whatever the house blend is. The amount of time and effort it takes to grow and harvest coffee beans around the world deserves a little more respect from the average consumer, especially since the delicate taste you get has nothing to do with the barista at Starbucks, and more to do with faraway volcanic slopes and mountain ridges.
by DamianPapworth


There's more to drinking coffee than just walking into a shop and asking for a small, medium, or large cup of whatever the house blend is. The amount of time and effort it takes to grow and harvest coffee beans around the world deserves a little more respect from the average consumer, especially since the delicate taste you get has nothing to do with the barista at Starbucks, and more to do with faraway volcanic slopes and mountain ridges.

Yes, what really makes coffee taste great are the beans themselves, or the special regions in countries around the world where the weather gets together to create the perfect growing environment. To learn a little bit more about the world's different coffee producing regions, as well as the most popular beans, you needn't look any further than this handy guide, which will teach you how to make the best possible pot of coffee around just by learning which brands to select.

Kenya AA People around the world know Kenya AA as a type of coffee, but there's actually more of a distinction to be made. Rather than a specific bean, this is a classification given depending on the size of the bean. So really, Kenya AA is letting customers know that they're getting the highest grade of Kenyan coffee beans, which are grown on the high plateaus on Mount Kenya, where the perfect mixture of great soil and suitable weather lead to a bean known for intense flavor as well as a lovely aroma.

Kape Barako One of the types of coffee grown in The Philippines, not many people are familiar with Kape Barako, because of an infestation of Coffee Rust in the 1990s that almost wiped out the plants forever. A type of Liberica species, the coffee, when available, is popular with gourmets, who enjoy a blend where it's mixed with Arabica to get the best tasting coffee with a distinct aroma.

Aloha Island Coffee Pods Some of the best coffee in the world comes from Hawaii, really the only place in the States where coffee beans thrive. The type of beans, Kona, come in many varieties, but the absolute best are produced at a private coffee plantation on the Big Island of Hawaii, located right on the slopes of Mauna Loa, the famous volcano. It's the volcanic soil, coupled with rainfall and tropical sunshine, that makes these beans grow so well here, resulting in a cup of coffee that's incredibly smooth and not at all acidic.

Santos Leave it to Brazil to make one of the most interesting coffee beans in the game. Instead of high acidity, like so many other varieties of Arabica coffee, this bean instead produces a light-bodied brew with surprisingly low acidity. The hot, humid climate in Brazil is what makes the beans so low in acidity, and the lower growing elevation means that harvests can be timed to when the fruit on the plant still smells sweet, which carries over into the beans once roasted.

In recent years, a growing movement for fair-trade coffee has made regular consumers aware that the beans they enjoy don't always come from people who are being fairly compensated for their hours toiling in the fields. In fact, harvesting coffee beans, whether you're on a hillside in Kenya or the jungle in Columbia, is extremely hard work, and it definitely deserves a fair wage. The best way, therefore, to buy coffee a lot of the time is by going through these fair-trade groups.

Regardless of how or where you're shopping for your coffee, please take a moment to consider whether or not it is fair-trade. The world of coffee harvesting is tough stuff, and most of the people who do it never receive proper financial credit for the amount of time and effort they put in. With different fair-trade companies around the world, many of which are easy to buy (just walk into Whole Foods or Trader Joes and ask), it makes giving credit where credit is due a whole lot easier of a task.

About the Author:

For a large Saturday BBQ, Damian Papworth's 8 cup coffee maker comes in real handy. On any other standard day though, one cup coffee makers are more appropriate.