Bourbon coffee was first produced in Réunion, an island off the African coast, it was taken by the French to mainland Africa and then to Latin America. The history is a little more interesting however, as the clipping used to grow this Bourbon variety was taken from the Nobel Tree, a coffee plant gifted to the King of France in 1714 by the Mayor of Amsterdam. This variety is also one of the reasons that Brazil became one of the world’s coffee power houses in the 1860s following a leaf-rust outbreak in Java.
Bourbon grows best at heights between 1,100-2,000ft or 335-609m, and is know to give a 20-30% higher yield than the other common varietal of Coffea Arabica, the Typica varietal, while retaining a similar quality of coffee. While accepted to maintain a good standard, and to produce coffee at a viable commercial level, it is generally susceptible to disease and pests.
Description
The young leaves of a bourbon varietal may be green or bronze in colour and mature leaves are generally larger than those of the Typica variety. Lateral or plagiotropic branches grow almost at right angles from the main (orthotropic) stems. Bourbon cherries are generally more round than Typica cherries.
Bourbon accessions from Yemen tend to have a single main stem (monocauly) whereas accessions from Ethiopia tend to form multiple stems.
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