Family reunion
For centuries, families have traced their long lines of heritage, often discovering siblings they never knew existed and distant cousins to add to their Christmas card list.
Over the past two years, scientists and researchers from World Coffee Research’s (WCR) collaborative research and development program have been documenting coffee’s family tree. They have compiled data about the main Arabica coffee varieties grown by farmers around the world and aggregated the information into a global cataglogue.
In 2016, WCR, a non-profit collaborative research and development program, released the first edition of the coffee varieties catalogue. In February 2018, it revealed a major update to its Arabica Coffee Varieties catalogue, adding varieties from six African counties: Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The catalogue previously only covered varieties commonly found in and around Central America.
“The catalogue is a living document,” says Christophe Montagnon, WCR Scientific Director and lead author on the
