How to Read a Coffee - Part 4: Variety, Price & Making Informed Choices

By Dale Harris & Alex Scott

This is the final part to our How to Read a Coffee guide, we hope you have found it useful! To make the most of this guide, you need to taste coffee with intention, read the information on the label or card, and make note of what you can taste. Over time you will pick up a familiarity with the terms we have discussed, building up a body of experience that guides you through this wonderful and exciting world of coffee.

Variety

Most people have some understanding of the difference between robusta and arabica coffee, the two most present commercially grown coffee species, with the latter being a shorthand for quality in many markets. But arabica (and robusta!) is not a single thing, its more like the surname of a big family tree. There are a lot of named varieties,  memorizing them all is only really for the most dedicated botanists. This makes variety a bit trickier to use for most customers, as an identifier for what they enjoy. However on a surface level, if you see a bag of coffee with the name of the variety, that’s usually a good sign the roaster cares about the coffee inside and has good levels of sourcing transparency.

For the most part, variety is determined by the origin. Each subspecies has different climate conditions it thrives in, making it more or less suitable for any given region, and by the same token more or less likely to show up in certain origins. For the farmers selecting which beans to grow, they are often making choices between flavour quality and crop yield; some of the tastiest varieties of coffee are the most challenging to grow, with susceptibility to things like leaf rust. A perfect example is SL28 (and SL32) grown widely in Kenya, and occasionally in other countries across central America. The Typica flavours we expect from great Kenyan coffees are tied to the unique interplay of Kenyan soil chemistry, specific processing techniques that ‘modify’ climactic impacts on fermentation and the variety. Take any one factor out of the equation and the profile shifts. An SL variety grown in Costa Rica may share a higher acidity, with a different flavour, or it may just have a slightly different body than Villa Sarchi planted alongside it.

Arabica originates in Ethiopia, before it was cultivated as a crop in Yemen. Today, coffee from Ethiopia is often referred to as ‘heirloom’ or ‘wild’. Once Yemeni farmers got to work, we see the formation of the main branches of the family forming with bourbon and typica varieties, after which Dutch and French colonial efforts in the 17th century spread these plants across the world.

There is lots more to write on this subject, (we’ll return to colonisation and coffee species another day) but to bring it back on topic, how does this help you pick a bag of coffee? As mentioned, for the most part, certain origins will have certain varieties, and so the country tends to be a more dominant indicator of flavour profile, and variety suggests some shifts within a given region or farm. Bourbon is well known for a heavier body, gentle acidity and sweeter chocolate tones, compared to Typica where fruit acidity and dark chocolate may be more intense. Because of the early adoption of these coffees, most other named varieties are related to one or the other, and some include hybrids between their progeny (or even between them and some robusta genetics) to create plants with valuable traits ranging from smaller more manageable sizes, higher yields or disease , pest and climate resilience. Often flavour impacts are secondary but follow genetics.

There are some extreme outliers to look out for, most notably the Gesha/Geisha variety. The name is derived from an Ethiopian mountain, near which the original sample was taken. It remained a relatively unknown variety until the Peterson family of Hacienda La Esmerelda entered a lot into the 2005 Best of Panama competition, where it fetched a record high price. If you see the word Gesha/Geisha on a bag, expect a clean, delicate and floral profile, often with a high price point. The connection to the Japanese Geisha word is of challenging origin, perhaps a typo, perhaps an intentional branding exercise. We choose to repeat the variety name the producer or exporter shares with us, respecting their choices for their coffee.

Another favourite of ours is pacamara, a hybrid of Pacas and Maragogype varieties that produces almost comically large beans. Another fussy plant to grow, requiring specific farming approaches. The reward for any farmer who takes the time to care for such plants is a beautiful balanced and complex coffee with potential for rich citrus and jammy flavours.

Price vs quality

Regardless of your budget, the price tag may either be the first or the last thing you read on the bag. Price is influenced by a broad range of things; cupping scores, scarcity, oil prices and wars all pull the dial one way or another. 

As a globally traded commodity, coffee prices twice reached record highs over 2025 and the market has mostly settled at around double the average of the previous decade. Whilst challenging, this also reflects that the long term average had been unsustainably low and was leading to production challenges and economic pressures impacting large communities with limited resilience.

More expensive usually correlates with greater complexity, distinctive or experimental flavour profiles, generally suited to espresso and pour over filter coffee. It almost always correlates with the roaster (and producers) sense of its uniqueness and value to a certain part of the market. Milk can mask nuance, so the factors that drive the high price of a rare process Panamanian Gesha might not lead to the most balanced latte.

You can get delicious beans at the more affordable end of the spectrum. These will usually have more classic, sweet, low acidity flavour profiles, that may perform better than more expensive counterparts  brewed in a stove top or served as a cappuccino.

If you want to taste the most expensive coffees, that are possibly the very best expression of terroir, process, variety and farming skill, be warned that there are diminishing returns; a coffee that costs 100x the market average is not going to taste 100x better. it may however be a striking representation of some of the aspects we’ve written about here and a useful reference point. Feel free to ask us for something expensive (at the bar, or when exploring our online offer list) and we may be able to find something fun for you!