How does the Bourbon Pointu coffee tree produce low-caffeine beans?

Bourbon Pointu, academically Coffea Laurina, is a coffee tree whose beans are slender and pointed at both ends and whose caffeine content is only about 0.5 percent. The low caffeine comes from genetic degradation rather than industrial decaffeination, so the variety needs no artificial processing to reduce caffeine while keeping a notable flavor.

The trade-off is very low yield. Bourbon Pointu is highly susceptible to leaf rust and black spot disease, which keeps production small and mostly limited to laboratory cultivation. It was widely grown on Bourbon Island in the 18th and 19th centuries, nearly disappeared, and was later revived by Japanese coffee expert Yoshihiro Kawashima; in 2018 Emi Fukahori won the World Coffee Brewing Championship with a Brazilian lot from Daterra.

Bourbon Pointu is a coffee variety with naturally very low caffeine content, academically known as Coffea Laurina. Its beans are slender and pointed at both ends. Due to genetic degradation, its caffeine content is only about 0.5%, requiring no artificial decaffeination, yet it has low yield and outstanding flavor, earning it a reputation as a rare variety in the coffee world. It once flourished on Bourbon Island in the 18th and 19th centuries, then nearly went extinct due to disasters, and was later rediscovered and revived by Japanese UCC coffee expert Yoshihiro Kawashima. At the 2018 World Coffee Brewing Championship, Swiss competitor Emi Fukahori used Bourbon Pointu from Brazil's Daterra estate to defeat Geisha and win the championship, drawing attention to it once again. In this article, Front Street Coffee will provide a comprehensive interpretation of this legendary coffee, from its history and variety characteristics to brewing parameters and flavor.

When it comes to decaf coffee, most people first think of products that have had caffeine removed through special processes. But in nature, there actually exists a variety that is naturally very low in caffeine—Bourbon Pointu. Its caffeine content is only about 0.5%, which is also why Front Street Coffee is introducing it today.

Bourbon Pointu is academically known as Coffea Laurina, or Laurina coffee; in everyday usage it is often called Bourbon Pointu. The name comes from its bean shape: it is narrower and longer than ordinary coffee beans, with slightly pointed ends.

Why is Bourbon Pointu's caffeine so low? The key is that it does not rely on artificial processing to reduce caffeine, but rather on genetic degradation, which makes its caffeine content naturally lower than that of ordinary Bourbon coffee trees, while also delivering better flavor. The cost is extremely low yield, which is also why it is rare and expensive. Bourbon Pointu is especially susceptible to leaf rust and black spot disease, which is the main factor making it difficult to increase yield; therefore it is very precious and can mostly only be cultivated in laboratories.

As early as the 18th century, Bourbon Pointu was already highly sought after. King Louis XV of France and the writer Balzac were both admirers. During the two hundred years from the 18th to the 19th century, Bourbon Island once cultivated Bourbon Pointu on a large scale, reaching a peak annual output of 4,000 metric tons in 1800.

However, hurricanes, fire ants, leaf rust, and other disasters followed one after another, and the scale of cultivation continued to shrink. By 1942, the last batch of Bourbon Pointu shipped back to France amounted to only about 200 kilograms. After that, it almost disappeared from records, was no longer mentioned in official documents, and was even once considered extinct.

Decades after Bourbon Pointu vanished without a trace, Yoshihiro Kawashima, a coffee expert at Japan's UCC, repeatedly heard coffee farmers in El Salvador mention that "low-caffeine coffee trees may still survive on French Bourbon Island," and so he developed the idea of searching for it.

In 1999, while on a study trip to Africa, he made a side trip to Bourbon Island to look for the legendary low-caffeine coffee trees. But things did not go smoothly: young people on the island had not even heard that coffee had once been grown on Bourbon Island. He had no choice but to leave his contact information with local farmers and officials before departing.

Two years later, in 2001, Kawashima received a call from a farmer on Bourbon Island saying that more than thirty unidentified coffee trees had been found in the wild. Later, experts identified them as none other than the Bourbon Pointu of old. Subsequently, French scientists and Japan's UCC cooperated to launch a revival plan for naturally low-caffeine coffee trees. In 2006, the first small batch of Bourbon Pointu coffee beans was finally obtained. After screening, they were launched in 2007, but mainly supplied to the Japanese market at a high price, said to be four times more expensive than top Blue Mountain.

At the 2018 World Coffee Brewing Championship, Emi Fukahori from Switzerland used a semi-carbonic maceration-processed Bourbon Pointu from Brazil to defeat many Panama Geishas and stand out, becoming a memorable page in the history of coffee competitions.

The beans she chose came from Laurina Bourbon Pointu grown in the Cerrado Region on Brazil's Daterra estate. In her presentation, she mentioned that this variety has 50% less caffeine than other Arabicas and 20% less chlorogenic acid, so its bitterness is also much lower. The flavors and aromas Emi Fukahori described at the time included red grapes, orange blossom, pineapple, rum, and green apple. Being able to suppress a host of Geishas and ultimately win the WBrC championship shows that Bourbon Pointu should not be underestimated.

The Bourbon Pointu coffee tree looks like a small Christmas tree, with shorter branches and narrow leaves, and a caffeine content of only 0.5%. It is especially susceptible to leaf rust and black spot disease, which is the main reason for its low yield; the red fruit also ripens earlier than in other varieties.

Although today's Bourbon Pointu no longer commands the exaggerated prices of years past, it is still a very precious bean. So how does it actually taste?

Observing the roasted beans, Bourbon Pointu is generally small and uniform in size, slender in shape with somewhat pointed ends, and looks a bit like wheat.

Front Street Coffee brewed a pot of naturally processed Bourbon Pointu. The parameters and flavor description are as follows:

Parameters: 15 grams of coffee, Hario V60 dripper, water temperature 90°C, medium-fine grind, coffee-to-water ratio 1:15.

Brewing method: staged extraction. First bloom with 30 grams of water, and end the bloom once the surface of the coffee bed changes from wet to dry; bloom time 30 seconds. Then pour in a small stream of water at the center up to 125 grams for the staged pour, and when the liquid level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225 grams and stop; when the liquid level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. Starting timing from the bloom, the total extraction time is 2 minutes.

Flavor: The dry aroma has notes of fermentation, spices, nuts, and tropical fruit; the wet aroma has obvious floral notes. The entry is smooth, presenting flavors of red fruit, plum, and pine nuts, with a lasting sugarcane-like sweet finish.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.