Canephora
Coffea canephora is a species, described in 1897; “robusta” is the name of one of its varieties, which trade extended to the whole species. This plate follows the species from the forests of the Congo basin to the 2025-26 season, when for the first time it supplies nearly one bag of coffee in two worldwide: discovery and naming, genome, genetic groups, Kouilou and Conilon, Uganda and its clones, coffee wilt disease, agronomy and processing, Vietnam, fine robustas, the record price of 2025 and the Timor Hybrid through which canephora saved arabica. Main sources: the manual of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (2019) with its page numbers, Ukers (1922), Coste (1955), the genomics work of Denoeud (2014) and Salojärvi (2024), the reviews by Kawuki (2026) and Davis (2026), the USDA and ICO reports, and Marco's unpublished book (LC).
The 19 sections of this plate
Each section has its own page. The first sentence says what you will find there.
- 01A species, not a varietyIn trade, the word robusta designates all the production of Coffea canephora.
- 02Discovery and naming, 1880-1900Almost at the same time, and with no link to Pierre, the Belgian botanist Émile Laurent spots a vigorous wild coffee tree in the Congo.
- 03Java, 1900-1919: rust paves the way for canephoraOrange rust destroyed the arabicas of Ceylon from 1869 and reached Sumatra in 1876; in the Dutch East Indies, it drove arabica out of every district below 3,500 feet, a little over 1,000 meters.
- 04The genome: diploid, allogamous, parent of arabicaCanephora is diploid, with 2n = 22 chromosomes and a base number x = 11.
- 05Two groups, then eight: genetic geographyThe structure of the species was read twice: first in the field, by eye, then in the DNA.
- 06Selecting an allogamous plant: five strategies in a century
- 07Kouilou, Niaouli, Conilon: the Guinean and Atlantic lineageThe name Kouilou comes from a coastal river of southern Gabon and Congo, where the species grows spontaneously.
- 08Uganda: the species on its native groundThe Lake Victoria crescent is the original habitat of Ugandan canephora, and this is not a figure of speech: wild canephora still grows there, in the forests of the lake basin and in the Kibaale and Zoka-Adjumani reserves, over an estimated 150 to 400 hectares.
- 09Coffee wilt disease, 1927-1993The disease that redrew African canephora is called coffee wilt disease, or tracheomycosis.
- 10Agronomy: what the species requiresThe Ugandan manual sets the conditions for canephora, item by item.
- 11Propagating, irrigating, cutting back: the grower's optionsThe plant. Two materials are sold in certified nurseries.
- 12Harvest and processing: Kiboko and washedTwo harvests a year, the main one and the “fly crop,” staggered from one region to another (see the table in the margin).
- 13A century of market shareThe rise of canephora is read by period, and each stage comes down to a market regime.
- 14Vietnam since 1990The takeoff comes down to a policy. The Đổi Mới of 1986 opens the market, allows private enterprise and the privatization of land.
- 15Fine robustas and the CQI protocolThe idea that a canephora can be good is not new.
- 16Price: the 2024-2025 recordCanephora is quoted in London, on ICE, in contracts of ten tonnes.
- 17The Timor Hybrid: what canephora gives arabicaOn a plantation in the Portuguese half of Timor, today Timor-Leste, an arabica and a canephora crossed spontaneously.
- 18What changed, 2023-2026Four dated facts sum up the state of the species.
- 19Archive platesEngravings and photographs from William Ukers's All About Coffee (1922), which has fallen into the public domain.
Elsewhere on the site, the passages that deal with the same things as this page. Computed from the text, not picked by hand.