Caturra
A natural Bourbon mutation found in Brazil a century ago. Compact, high yielding, and hungry, which is why it ended up planted across Colombia.
- Lineage
- Natural dwarf mutation of Bourbon, found in Minas Gerais, Brazil between 1915 and 1918
Caturra is a single-gene dwarf mutation of Bourbon, found on a Brazilian farm in Minas Gerais sometime between 1915 and 1918. The mutation shortens the distance between branches, so the tree stays low and puts its energy into cherry instead of height.
That shape is why it spread. A compact tree can be planted densely and picked without ladders, and it yields more per hectare than the Bourbon it came from. Colombia adopted it heavily through the 1970s and 80s.
The cost is appetite. Caturra needs more fertilizer and more attention than older varieties to hold that yield, and it has no resistance to coffee leaf rust. When rust moved through Colombia between 2008 and 2012, Caturra took the worst of it and much of the country replanted to Castillo.
What's still in the ground is there because a grower chose to keep it. Picked ripe and grown high, Caturra gives the clean sweetness and citric acidity people mean when they say a coffee tastes Colombian.
That shape is why it spread. A compact tree can be planted densely and picked without ladders, and it yields more per hectare than the Bourbon it came from. Colombia adopted it heavily through the 1970s and 80s.
The cost is appetite. Caturra needs more fertilizer and more attention than older varieties to hold that yield, and it has no resistance to coffee leaf rust. When rust moved through Colombia between 2008 and 2012, Caturra took the worst of it and much of the country replanted to Castillo.
What's still in the ground is there because a grower chose to keep it. Picked ripe and grown high, Caturra gives the clean sweetness and citric acidity people mean when they say a coffee tastes Colombian.
