ROBUSTA VERSUS ARABICA. Julie Wernau and John Otis had an article in the Wall Street Journal (December 17, 2018) about developments in the world coffee market. Coffee comes from two kinds of plants—arabica and robusta. Arabica has about 60% of the market and robusta has about 40%. The article had harsh things to say about robusta, including these comments from “a consultant in the specialty coffee industry”:
*”People say it tastes like tires.”
*”Like petroleum barrels.”
*I’ve even heard it described as ‘the tears of children'”.
Based on that description and my experience, it sounds like 100% of coffee is made from robusta.
It’s continually surprising to me that I have a son who is not addicted to coffee, and indeed dislikes it.
Every few years I wind up trying it to see if my tastes have changed. Jane has even remarked that based on some beers and black tea I like it doesn’t make sense that I don’t like coffee.
That said, Dunkin Donuts accidentally gave me iced coffee instead of iced tea last summer. I didn’t realize until I tasted it. At first I thought the tea had gone bad, because it tasted atrocious, before I realized what had happened.
Guess it’s not for me.