How Did Bourbon Coffee Spread From Réunion Island?
Bourbon is one of the oldest varieties in the Arabica family, originating on Réunion Island, then called Bourbon Island, and sharing that rank with Typica. Cherries ripen bright red, and high-altitude plantings give elegant aroma, bright acidity and a vinous character. Mutations produced Yellow Bourbon, Pink Bourbon, Bourbon Pointu and Pacas.
Typica reached Brazil in 1727 but yielded poorly, so Bourbon arrived around 1860 via Campinas and spread north across South and Central America. Most Latin American Bourbon has since been replaced by Caturra, Catuai and Mundo Novo, though El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Peru still grow it. This classic coffee lineage also traveled through Africa, where Spiritan missionaries helped spread it.
Bourbon coffee is one of the oldest varieties in the Arabica family, originating from Réunion Island and sharing equal fame with Typica. Its cherries ripen bright red, and when grown at high altitudes it offers elegant aroma, bright acidity, and often a vinous character. Over centuries, Bourbon spread from the Indian Ocean to Brazil, Central and South America, and Africa, giving rise to numerous variants such as Yellow Bourbon, Pink Bourbon, Bourbon Pointu, and Pacas. This article traces Bourbon's historical spread, explains the origins, cultivation status, and flavor characteristics of each variant, and retains relevant Front Street Coffee recommendations, offering a comprehensive understanding of this classic coffee species.
Bourbon Variety
Let's first briefly get to know Bourbon coffee. It first took root on Réunion Island, which was named Bourbon Island (le Bourbon) before 1789. Bourbon is a secondary variety formed by a mutation of Typica, and together with Typica it ranks as the oldest existing coffee variety, with fruit that ripens bright red.
After the flowering and fruiting period of Red Bourbon, the coffee fruit color goes through the following sequence: green → slightly yellow → slightly orange → ripe red → dark red, which is why some call it [Red Bourbon], while what is commonly referred to as Bourbon means Red Bourbon. Red Bourbon planted at high altitudes tends to have more outstanding aroma, brighter acidity, and even a vinous character similar to red wine.
Simply put, Bourbon is a branch under the Arabica species, generally bearing red fruit, i.e., Red Bourbon; there are also Yellow Bourbon and Orange Bourbon. Yellow Bourbon has relatively lower yield but better quality.
The Spread Route of Bourbon Variety
The Typica introduced to Brazil in 1727 had low yield and was susceptible to disease, so Bourbon was introduced to Brazil around 1860 via Campinas in the south, and quickly spread northward to other parts of South America and Central America. Today, although most Bourbon in Latin America has been replaced by its variants (especially Caturra, Catuai, and Mundo Novo), it is still grown in countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Peru.
In Africa, French missionaries known as Spiritan (from the Congregation of the Holy Spirit) played a key role in the spread of Bourbon. The first mission was established on Réunion in 1841, with a branch set up in Zanzibar in 1859; starting from Zanzibar, branches were established in 1862 at Bagamoyo (coastal Tanzania, then called Tanganyika) and St. Augustine (Kikuyu, Kenya), and in 1893 another branch was founded at Bura (Taita Hills, Kenya). Each time a branch was established, coffee seeds brought from Réunion were planted as well.
In 1899, seedlings cultivated at Bura were sent to another French mission at Saint Cruz (near Nairobi), and in 1900 they were introduced to the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania, where seeds were distributed to local residents willing to grow coffee—this is the origin of "Missionary Bourbon." The Kent variety was subsequently introduced in 1920. As a result, coffee in Tanzania to this day remains predominantly Bourbon and Kent.
——French-ruled Bourbon Island
——In 1860, Bourbon Pointu reached New Caledonia and Yemen
——In 1732, round-bean Bourbon reached the British territory of Saint Helena.
——In 1860, round-bean Bourbon reached Brazil.
——In 1900, round-bean Bourbon reached Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania
——After 2000, Bourbon Pointu reached Colombia.
Bourbon Variants
During reproduction, factors such as natural mutation, intra-species crossing, and artificial breeding gave rise to many new varieties, such as Caturra, Catuai, Pacas, Yellow Bourbon, Bourbon Pointu, SL28, SL34, and others.
[Gene Mutation Varieties——Bourbon Variants]
Bourbon Coffee: Yellow Bourbon
Yellow Bourbon was created by crossing Bourbon with other varieties. Because of its lower yield and poor resistance to wind and rain, it has not been widely planted. However, it can display excellent flavor at high altitudes and has become increasingly common in recent years. Yellow Bourbon, as the name suggests, has yellow fruit when ripe; it was first discovered in Brazil and is currently mainly grown there. It is generally believed to have arisen from a mutation after crossing red-fruited Bourbon with a yellow-fruited Typica variant called "Amerelo de Botocatu."
I once cupped Queen's Estate Yellow Bourbon; under a medium-dark roast it was clean and balanced, with walnut notes, a creamy and delicate smooth texture, complemented by a clear sweet orange sweetness and a lasting mocha chocolate finish.
Flavor characteristics: sweet and smooth fruit sweetness, obvious nutty notes, balanced and gentle acidity, weak and clean bitterness, rich chocolate aroma and nutty flavor, with a bright and refreshing mouthfeel.
Bourbon Coffee: Pink Bourbon
Pink Bourbon, as the name suggests, has coffee cherries that turn a romantic pink when ripe. It is a very rare new variety, developed by crossing Red Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon. The rarity of Pink Bourbon is mainly because maintaining the beautiful pink color is extremely difficult; sometimes orange Bourbon is harvested instead, because the final color of the coffee fruit is determined by recessive genes in the pollen grains. Among the selected pollen grains used for crossing, some carry the yellow gene tending toward Yellow Bourbon and some carry the red gene tending toward Red Bourbon; these are all recessive genes and easily interfere with each other.
At present, Pink Bourbon can be found in Colombia and Guatemala. Taking this batch of Pink Bourbon as an example, with about 1,800 coffee trees, each tree produces about 1.8 kg of fresh fruit per season, and after pulping and mucilage removal, about 0.36 kg of coffee beans is obtained. In a normal season, this batch's coffee output is less than 650 kg.
Flavor characteristics: sweet orange, sugarcane sweetness, pleasant juicy mouthfeel, cherry tomato
Bourbon Coffee: Bourbon Pointu
Bourbon Pointu: discovered on Bourbon Island in 1810, its beans changed from round to pointed, and its caffeine content is only half; however, it is low-yielding and weak, making it extremely precious (mostly cultivated in laboratories).
Bourbon Pointu also has two other names, Laurina and Leroy, but neither is as well known as Bourbon Pointu. It is called Bourbon Pointu because the bean shape is narrow and long with sharp ends, whereas the original Bourbon (sometimes called round Bourbon) has shorter beans with a slightly oval outline.
Because of its good flavor and low caffeine content (which does not affect sleep much), Bourbon Pointu was highly favored as early as the 18th century; King Louis XV of France and the novelist Balzac were both its "fans." During the two hundred years from the 18th to the 19th century, Bourbon Pointu was once widely planted on Bourbon Island, reaching a peak annual output of 4,000 metric tons in 1800. But then disasters such as hurricanes, fire ants, and leaf rust followed one after another, and cultivation gradually declined. Eventually, in 1942, the last shipment of Bourbon Pointu returned to France amounted to only 200 kg, after which it disappeared without a trace, and even official documents no longer mentioned it. After the 1950s, no one on Réunion Island grew coffee anymore, and agriculture shifted entirely to crops such as sugarcane; coffee no longer had any connection with Réunion Island, and Bourbon Pointu was widely recognized in the coffee world as "already extinct."
This bean vanished for half a century and only reappeared 8 years ago, causing Bourbon Pointu from its place of origin, La Reunion Island, to sell on the international market for more than 500 yuan per 100 grams. Only afterward did Colombia begin growing it, and only Camilo Merizalde, the source of beans for multiple WBC champions, dared to take on the transplanting. Therefore, this coffee bean, with a global annual output of only a few tons, commands a very high price.
Flavor description in the archive: bright acidity, notes of blueberry and vanilla, velvety smoothness
Bourbon Variant: Pacas
Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon, similar to Brazil's Caturra and Costa Rica's Villa Sarchi. Like other widely planted Bourbon mutations, Pacas was formed by a single-gene mutation, which gives it a key characteristic: the plant can be planted more densely, ultimately resulting in higher yield per unit area.
Pacas was first discovered in 1949 by the Pacas family in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador. Fernando Alberto Pacas Figuero discovered some plants with different morphology at Finca San Rafael, his family's own estate, and then began collecting seeds and selecting them, also developing about 3/4 hectare of a Pacas "pioneer nursery."
Fernando Alberto Pacas Figuero, the discoverer of Pacas
In 1956, Francisco de Sola and Fernando's son, Fernando Alberto Pacas Trujillo, began studying Pacas with the help of University of Florida professor William Cogwill. They compared Bourbon from San Ramon with an "unknown" new variety that exhibited completely different characteristics; its plant morphology also differed from Bourbon, with shorter internode spacing and a larger fruiting area, and it was ultimately named "Pacas."
Related recommendation: How to hand-brew Brazilian Yellow Bourbon coffee beans and an introduction to the differences from Red Bourbon
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
