Eager to dispel Robusta's reputation as a second-rate coffee only suitable for instant drinks, more producers around the world are churning out luxury varieties of the bean grown, picked and processed with extra love.
Toi Nguyen, owner of the Future Coffee Farm in Vietnam, has been at the forefront of the global push for quality Robusta. Coffee from Nguyen's farm is made with only the ripest beans grown under strictly monitored conditions, and has received high marks from the Specialty Coffee Association of America.
"It now has fans in Europe too, and is harder to get ahold of than before," said Hiromasa Okazaki, president of online coffee retailer Namamame Honpo. "Its wholesale price has gone up about 20% from last year."
I was given very nice Rwanda Robusta green coffee from a friend who originally picked it up on Sweet Maria's. I then went looking for more quality Robusta only to find that it was priced out of my range, when you could find it at all. My local roaster was partnering with another roaster on Robusta education and cross-promotion marketing, but the prices need to come down more for me to bite again.
I'm hardly knowledgeable about coffee as a global commodity.
A few years back I picked up a number of delicious robustas from SM, Burman and Paradise, but a lot of that has seemed to disappear. You can get a roasted Ecuador robusta from Paradise, but apparently no longer greens as retail from them. Their roast is priced as a boutique coffee, which may only indicate how few people buy it. (It's a fine robusta, I don't mean to imply it's not of high quality.)
I had a very nice Italian blend recently: Caffé Mauro Classic, which is a medium-dark 70-30 blend from Calabria. At first impression, I thought they might be blending post-roast, but I recalled from my experiences roasting, that robusta don't always color the way arabicas do. A wonderful blend with varied bean color:
