[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Coffee_Family_Tree_Web-1.jpg” url=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Coffee_Family_Tree_Digital.png” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”1 – Intro” _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” header_font=”Raleway||||||||”]<\/p>\n
Do you ever look at your siblings and think, \u201cHow can we be related and still be so flippin\u2019 different?\u201d It\u2019s not uncommon for members of the same family\u2014even those who are closely genetically linked to each other\u2014to display different characteristics, to adapt to the environment, and to appear in some ways, at least on the surface, to be distinct.<\/p>\n
Funny enough, the same is startlingly true with coffee, even simply within the species Arabica. There are hundreds of varieties with individual proper names planted all over the world, and many of them grow differently, look different, and certainly taste different from each other\u2014but when you dig below the soil and research each plant\u2019s roots, you\u2019ll often find yourself tangled in a network of related, crossed, back-crossed, and derivative genetic lines that, well, often lead back to one or two or three main branches.<\/p>\n
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This is how the Cafe Imports Coffee Family Tree poster project began in the early 2010s, with a general curiosity about the varieties that coffee people were talking about and noticing, and wondering how they related to each other, broadly speaking. Printed posters of the first and second editions were distributed to countless roasters in the English-speaking coffee world, and by 2016 the posters were only slightly updated content- and design-wise, as well as translated into Arabic, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Russian.<\/p>\n
In 2018, after the release of the first edition of the World Specialty-Coffee Maps<\/a> and with a heap of newly released variety information from World Coffee Research, the Coffee Family Tree came up for a major overhaul\u2014but only if it could be done right. \u201cIt was tossed in my direction,\u201d says Cafe Imports sensory-analysis director Ian Fretheim<\/a>, \u201cand that\u2019s when I started really looking at this stuff with any sort of interest. I kept going and going and going, and I got curious and ran with it.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Coffee_Family_Tree_detail-2.png” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”3 – Why?” _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” header_font=”Raleway||||||||”]<\/p>\n At Cafe Imports, we\u2019re particularly interested in coffee varieties (and cultivars, and hybrids) for several reasons: One is that, well, we\u2019re a pretty nerdy bunch, and we are very curious in general. We like to know how things work (or don\u2019t work), and of course how to improve them. Another reason is that we work closely and directly with coffee farmers who might have one or several types of coffee on their land, and knowing more about the plants themselves can help us be a better partner to the producer through shared context and understanding. Third, like many other specialty-coffee companies, we are concerned about the effects of climate change on the coffee industry, and we have watched the intersection of monoculture and climate change with the most recent prevalence of coffee-leaf rust in Latin America, as well as drought affecting what were formerly considered so-called \u201cdrought resistant\u201d coffees in East Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing that shows up really really quick is just how small the pool is,\u201d Ian says. \u201cI mean, genetically we\u2019re probably technically in a monoculture.\u201d Ian should know: To update the tree, he cataloged and organized a couple years\u2019 worth of research, cross-checking, and feverish spreadsheeting on an epic mission to not simply update the poster\u2019s general data, but to make it a useful, practical, and eye-opening resource for other (nerdy) coffee people (like us).<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Coffee_Family_Tree_detail-1.png” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”4 – Process” _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” header_font=”Raleway||||||||”]<\/p>\n Over the course of his research, Ian kept an Excel document with every variety he encountered from a variety of sources, including Jean Nicolas Wintgen\u2019s pivotal if dense book Coffee: Growing, Processing, Sustainable Production, and, once it was released online, the World Coffee Research Variety Catalog<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe process was really fun and simultaneously really frustrating,\u201d he says. \u201cThe information backing where these varieties come from, the providence of a given coffee is really shaky a lot of times. Looking online, you are maybe looking at really once source repeated five times.\u201d Ian, a natural researcher who says, \u201cI don\u2019t super care for anecdotal evidence,\u201d began poring over every known resource related to coffee varieties, performing Google Scholar searches and cross- and double-cross-checking sources to confirm the information he found was as correct as could be expected.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rabbit hole doesn\u2019t go deep at all, it goes down and then it just goes horizontally,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt goes very broad but it stays relatively shallow. It\u2019s really hard to punch down into depth, where you\u2019re finding that deep stuff, \u2018Oh, this was worked on for two decades in the 50s and 60s, test released, brought back to refinement, test released and then released.\u2019 So much of the industry is anecdotal information as opposed to technical information. Trying to dig in and trying to find that technical information is a little more challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.7″ src=”\/\/cdn.cafeimports.com\/images\/Cafe_Imports_Coffee_Family_Tree_Brief_History_Map_isolated_web.png” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”5 – Design” _builder_version=”3.7″ text_font=”Raleway||||||||” text_font_size=”15px” header_font=”Raleway||||||||”]<\/p>\n