Six faces of coffee.

Elegant, aromatic, complex. A natural hybrid of Coffea canephora and C. eugenioides, and the only tetraploid in the family: 44 chromosomes, double most of its relatives. That accident of genetics gave us the flavour diversity specialty coffee is built on.

First harvest arrives three to four years after planting. Caffeine sits low, roughly 0.8–1.4%, which is part of why the cup reads sweet and articulate rather than blunt. Everything Flying Frog roasts is Arabica — Castillo, Bourbon, Maragogype, Sudan Rume, Pacamara.

Bold, structured, resilient. Native to Central and West Africa, happy at 0–800 masl and in heat that would break an Arabica tree. Naturally resistant to leaf rust, hardy, high-yielding, and carrying roughly 2.0–2.7% caffeine — more body, more bite, more crema.

Its flowers are dichogamous: male and female phases occur at different times, forcing cross-pollination and keeping the species genetically restless. Robusta is not the enemy of good coffee. Badly grown Robusta is. A carefully produced fine Robusta is a real and growing category.

Wild, aromatic, distinctive. Native to West Africa, especially Liberia, and one of the parents of several cultivated lines. It produces the largest beans of any Coffea species — irregular, thick-walled, awkward to roast evenly.

It thrives in hot, humid lowlands, 0–600 masl, and takes four to six years to first harvest. The cup is smoke, spice and tropical fruit: divisive, unmistakable, and beloved in Malaysia and the Philippines where it never went out of fashion.

Rare, complex, heritage. Native to Central Africa and the Congo Basin, botanically treated as a variety of Liberica by most taxonomists and as its own thing by most farmers. Five to seven years to first harvest, tolerant of heat and humidity up to about 1,000 masl.

Large, elongated beans and a woody-sweet profile: full body, low acidity, dark chocolate, tropical fruit and spice. It exists in tiny volumes, and it matters far more for biodiversity than for market share.

Ancient, rare, precious. A diploid species of the montane forests of West Africa, effectively lost to cultivation for a century and rediscovered in the wild in Sierra Leone in 2018. Trees reach 15–20 metres; first harvest can take seven to ten years.

In blind tastings it has been mistaken for high-grade Arabica: tea-like, floral, bright acidity, delicate body — but it ripens in temperatures several degrees warmer than Arabica tolerates. That combination is why it is currently the most watched plant in coffee.

Elusive, distinctive, promising. Named after the Belgian botanist Dr. Antoine De Wevre, discovered in the forests of West Africa, diploid and genetically close to Arabica without being it.

It tolerates high temperatures and full sun, holds up in degraded soils, and shows strong natural resistance to leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix). The cup is clean and sweet with bright acidity, floral notes and a silky mouthfeel — a genuine candidate for climate-resilient breeding rather than a curiosity.

Arabica is fragile. It likes a narrow band of altitude and temperature that is moving uphill every decade, and its genetic base is famously narrow — the whole cultivated population descends from a very small founding group. Leaf rust, borer and heat all know this.

Liberica, Excelsa, Stenophylla and Dewevrei are the library we did not bother to read. They carry heat tolerance, disease resistance and, in Stenophylla's case, a cup quality nobody expected. Protecting wild Coffea habitat is not sentiment; it is supply-chain maintenance.

We roast Arabica because it is, today, the most expressive thing a farmer can hand us. We pay attention to the other five because the next fifty years of coffee will be written with their genetics.