Arabica vs Robusta: What's Actually in Your Bag of Coffee

Every bag of specialty coffee you'll ever buy, including both of ours, says "100% Arabica" somewhere on it. Most people skim past it. It's worth knowing why it's there, and why Robusta almost never gets a mention on a bag that costs more than a fiver.

Two species, one massive gap in quality

There are dozens of coffee species technically, but only two show up in your cup with any regularity: Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora, which everyone just calls Robusta. They're not two grades of the same bean, they're genuinely different plants, grown differently, tasting completely different.

Arabica grows slowly at altitude, usually above 600 metres, in cooler, more demanding conditions. It's fussier to farm, produces less per plant, and is more vulnerable to disease and frost. What you get for the hassle is a smoother, more complex cup, lower in bitterness, with the fruit, floral, and sweet notes that specialty coffee is built around.

Robusta grows faster, at lower altitudes, is hardier, and produces roughly double the yield. It also carries close to twice the caffeine content of Arabica, which sounds like an upside until you taste it: harsher, more bitter, sometimes described as rubbery or grainy. It's the backbone of most instant coffee and a lot of cheap pre-ground blends, and occasionally appears in a small percentage in Italian espresso blends specifically for the thicker crema it produces.

Where it all started

Arabica's story traces back to the highlands of Ethiopia, where it still grows wild today, before making its way to Yemen, then across the world through Dutch and French colonial trade routes in the 1600s and 1700s. Nearly every Arabica tree grown commercially today, including whatever's in your cup right now, descends from a handful of plants that made that original journey. Robusta, by contrast, comes from the lowland forests of central and west Africa, and only really entered global production in the late 1800s once a leaf disease wiped out huge swathes of Arabica in Sri Lanka and parts of Asia, forcing growers to look for something hardier.

Globally, Arabica still makes up the majority of production, roughly 60 to 70 percent depending on the year's harvest, with Robusta filling most of the rest, concentrated heavily in Vietnam and Brazil.

Where our beans fit in

Lekker Brew and Bliksem Brew are both 100% Arabica, no exceptions, no filler. Lekker Brew is a Brazil x Colombia blend built for smoothness and sweetness, mandarin, marzipan, white chocolate, the kind of cup that holds up under milk. Bliksem Brew is single origin from Yacuanquer, Colombia, and it's the one we let show off on its own, redcurrant, jelly, orange zest, properly bright.

Neither has a drop of Robusta in it, and that's not us being precious, it's just that Robusta doesn't do what we're trying to do here. If we wanted maximum caffeine and minimum cost, sure. We don't.

Does that mean Robusta is always bad?

Not necessarily. Some well-made Robusta has its place, and it's genuinely useful in certain espresso blends for body and crema. But if you're buying a bag specifically for flavour, for a proper pour-over or a considered flat white, Arabica is doing the heavy lifting every time. That's really the whole story behind the "100% Arabica" label: it's shorthand for "we picked flavour over yield."

Want to taste the difference for yourself? Shop the full range.