Catuai Variety | An Origin Story

In Goldilocks and the Three Bears, when Goldilocks is looking for a place to sit, she finds one chair to be too hard, one to be too soft, and one to be ‘just right’. This is one way to look at the pursuit of coffee-producing countries in creating hybrid varieties.

They are trying to find varieties that have high-yields and are easy to access for harvesting and are not susceptible to plant disease and produce a delicious cup of coffee. They are searching high and low, experimenting far and wide, to create a coffee variety that is ‘just right’. This is what makes the coffee world so exciting! There is always a new frontier of coffee varieties being explored somewhere.

In the 1970s, the name of that coffee frontier was the Catuai variety.

A Hybrid of Small Proportions

Researched since the 1940s, Catuai is a cross between the compact Caturra and the productive Mundo Novo varieties made by the Instituto Agronomico (IAC) of Brazil. 

Caturra was birthed when seeds of the Bourbon variety (originally from the island of Bourbon, or Réunion as we know it today) were planted in Brazil. Growing in that soil, a very important gene in the Bourbon’s genetic code mutated: the gene that determines internodal distance, or, the distance between the plant’s branches. It shrunk!

Suddenly, a new variety of coffee plant was created; one that was smaller, more compact and, therefore, more productive. Discovered in the early 1900s on a plantation in Brazil, this variety was called “Caturra” after the indigenous Guarani word meaning "small." In the coffee world, small is a good thing! Plants could be placed closer together on a farm and, due to the shorter distance between branches, produce more fruit in the same amount of space, enabling high-density coffee production. In short, Caturra’s size made it easier to pick and more efficient to farm. Its downside? Caturra is highly susceptible to coffee leaf rust, a potentially devastating plant disease.

Mundo Novo, on the other hand, has a different origin story. In the late 1800s, seeds of the Typica variety from Indonesia were planted in Jaú, São Paulo in Brazil. At some point, this variety naturally bred with plants of the Bourbon variety already growing in that region. The result? A natural hybrid between the two that had higher yields, lower susceptibility to plant disease, and a better cup quality. Discovered in the 1940s, this variety was dubbed “Mundo Novo” after the region in which it was found and distributed to Brazilian farmers as early as the 1950s.

With Mundo Novo now in existence, the IAC began to cross breed these two varieties–looking for a smaller, more efficient plant (from the Caturra) that also produced high yields and had a higher cup quality (from the Mundo Novo). And they were successful! The Catuai variety was officially born. 

What Makes It Special?

Catuai stands out as a variety primarily for its high-productivity and size. Due to its compactness, Catuai can be planted at nearly double the density of other varieties, significantly increasing its productivity and efficiency. In addition, its smaller size makes it ideal for picking and applying disease treatments. Most importantly, it has a reliable, good cup quality. 

In many ways, the researchers at IAC had found their “just right” variety! But perhaps not in every way, as Catuai is still highly susceptible to coffee leaf rust. 

Where Is Catuai Today?

Today, this variety is widely cultivated in Brazil and Central America–most notably in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras. In Costa Rica, especially, the Caturra and Catuai varieties together account for roughly 90% of all coffee production. 

Unlike the name Caturra which means “small”, Catuai translates in the Guarani language to “very good”. And it lives up to its name, producing a reliably sweet cup with bright acidity all over the world today. To some it might not be everything, but to many, Catuai is “just right”.  

Written by Cameron Dodd