0:00

Hey, it's Kate. We're off today

0:02

because of the July 4th holiday tomorrow, but

0:05

we wanted to share an episode we made in March.

0:08

It's about the rise of the lesser-known

0:10

Robusta coffee bean. Here

0:12

it is.

0:17

The two main types of coffee beans

0:19

are Robusta and Arabica. And

0:22

for decades, one bean has

0:24

dominated the other. You don't need to know

0:26

how to pronounce Arabica beans.

0:29

You just need to know how to drink

0:31

them. That's coffee made with 100% Arabica beans.

0:34

McCafe believes in using 100% fine Arabica beans. What

0:37

we do is use freshly ground Arabica beans

0:40

and organic milk.

0:41

You'll see a lot of big coffee

0:43

companies, one of the ways that they communicate

0:46

that they're serious about coffee is they say 100% Arabica. And

0:49

there's lots of them. So it's just this sort of

0:52

byword for communicating good coffee

0:54

is 100% Arabica. Our

0:56

colleague John Emon says Robusta,

0:58

meanwhile, has a reputation for being

1:01

cheap and not very good. Robusta,

1:04

it was treated as inferior. Starbucks

1:07

on its website says its harsher taste

1:09

is often compared to burnt rubber.

1:12

Robusta in the way it's traditionally

1:15

been grown and produced is very,

1:17

very bitter. It tastes

1:19

a bit like drinking, it

1:21

tastes a bit like what I imagine

1:24

fuel tastes like. It's

1:26

intense. It's very intense. Burnt

1:29

rubber, fuel. It

1:31

sounds kind of gross. But

1:34

recently there's been a new movement of

1:36

people who say Robusta has just been given a bad

1:38

rap. They say that not only

1:40

can Robusta be good,

1:42

but that it can also grow better in an

1:44

era of climate change. A

1:47

lot of the young

1:49

coffee geeks and the folks who are

1:51

founding cafes today who say, actually, we think

1:53

Robusta can be good. One reason

1:56

that animates a lot of young coffee

1:58

geeks is global warming.

1:59

And so for some, it's actually a rebellion.

2:04

Welcome to The Journal, our show about

2:07

money, business, and power. I'm Ryan

2:09

Knudson. Coming

2:18

up on the show, the Robusta Rebellion

2:21

that's brewing in the coffee industry.

2:32

This episode is brought to you by UiPath.

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3:01

Are you a

3:02

big coffee drinker? I am. I think almost everybody

3:04

is. I'm not as snobby

3:06

as some people. I wouldn't call myself a real expert or

3:08

anything. But reporting this piece, I spoke to

3:10

a lot of real coffee geeks, and I

3:12

learned that I wasn't one just through listening to

3:15

them. One

3:17

of the things John learned from all these conversations is

3:19

that Arabica didn't always dominate Robusta.

3:22

Its rise in the US started in the early 90s. It

3:25

was a very, very, very difficult time Its

3:28

rise in the US started a few decades ago.

3:33

It starts with this

3:36

movement in the United States, on

3:38

the West Coast, in the 1970s or around

3:40

then, where

3:44

coffee geeks decided to try

3:46

to introduce good

3:49

coffee to Americans who at this point were mainly

3:51

drinking instant coffee and thought

3:53

of coffee as something that would wake

3:56

them up in the morning, but not as something to

3:58

luxuriate over or to enjoy.

3:59

Enjoy. Companies like Pete's

4:02

and Starbucks looked at cafes in Europe

4:04

to see how they could create a high-quality experience

4:06

for their customers, a coffee culture.

4:09

And it worked. Coffee shops in the U.S.

4:12

became a place where you could meet with friends, work

4:14

on homework, write your screenplay,

4:16

all over a good cup of coffee. And

4:19

the beans that companies like Starbucks used

4:22

were Arabica's.

4:26

And what that ended up doing was

4:29

it just created this idea that

4:31

Arabica was better than Robusta,

4:33

which true or not sort of created this

4:36

cycle where Arabica farmers,

4:38

especially in recent years, could actually

4:41

sell their

4:42

coffee for more money if they actually

4:44

invested in it, because there was this market

4:47

for specialty coffees. Whereas with Robusta,

4:49

it became a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Because

4:52

it was treated as inferior, any

4:54

Robusta farmer who invested

4:56

in quality and in processing

5:00

would not get that money back.

5:01

No one was going to pay more for Robusta. So it

5:04

just stayed where it was, essentially. Arabica

5:08

won. And Robusta was relegated

5:10

to the world of instant coffees, or as

5:12

someone that roasters mixed into a bag of Arabica

5:14

beans in order to make it cheaper.

5:17

But Arabica always had one weakness.

5:20

It's more difficult to grow.

5:23

It is much more delicate than

5:25

Robusta. It's much less pest

5:28

resistant. It does not do

5:30

as well in the heat, whereas Robusta

5:33

tended to do better in the intense

5:35

heat.

5:36

And as the climate changes, growing

5:39

Arabica is becoming more expensive. Arabica

5:42

is really vulnerable to climate change. So

5:44

in Brazil, for example, there's been a lot of weird

5:47

weather that has really devastated

5:50

the Arabica crop and set Arabica prices up quite

5:52

a bit in recent years, like sudden frosts

5:54

and things like that. So that's one thing that some

5:56

people will think, well, let's embrace Robusta.

5:59

Robusta thrives in hotter weather,

6:02

and that's becoming a big advantage.

6:04

There's thinking and

6:06

then some science to back it up that Robusta

6:09

really would do better in a world where

6:11

climate's much less predictable and

6:13

the world is warmer. And so we have to find

6:16

coffee that's suited to the new ecology

6:18

of the world, and we have to find a

6:20

way to make it good.

6:21

Even though Robusta grows better in warmer climates,

6:24

no one will drink it if it doesn't taste

6:26

good.

6:28

So that's why this is so revolutionary, is people

6:30

saying, wait, but does it have to be like this? Does

6:33

it have to taste like this? And when you say does it

6:35

have to, it's the idea that if you grow

6:37

the beans differently or more delicately

6:39

or you process them in a slightly different way,

6:42

that you can actually make Robusta taste better.

6:44

Yes, that's right. That's absolutely the idea.

6:47

And there's no question that that's true. I

6:49

mean, there might be debate about how

6:52

far you can go, but there's no question that you can make

6:54

it better.

6:55

One man who's been trying to make Robusta better

6:58

is a farmer in India named Nishant

7:00

Gourjur. I'm Nishant Gourjur,

7:02

so I'm the managing partner of

7:04

Capiroyal and Satoraman Estate.

7:07

And I'm a sixth-generation

7:09

coffee grower.

7:11

Nishant's farm has been in his family for more than

7:13

two centuries. And

7:15

when he took over the farm in the 1990s, he

7:17

made a risky decision.

7:19

He ripped out his Arabica crops and

7:21

replaced them with Robusta. When

7:23

you made this pivot from

7:25

Arabica beans to Robusta beans back

7:28

in the 90s, did anybody tell

7:30

you that you were crazy at the time?

7:32

A lot of people. I mean, everyone

7:35

thought that I had gone cuckoo. There was this

7:37

young kid out of college, and he's

7:40

ripping apart his family business, and he's

7:42

growing Robusta, and what's

7:44

wrong with him, and how's he going to sell it? It's

7:49

crap coffee and all sorts of things.

7:52

Arabica doesn't grow so well in humid areas,

7:54

like where Nishant's farm is.

7:57

Why did you think Robusta might be better?

8:00

okay fine we can be average Aramika

8:02

producers which we wear or we can

8:04

really up the ante and go totally

8:07

different and go towards growing

8:10

high-end specialty Robusters. I know it

8:12

was swimming against the tide and people

8:14

in 95, 96 didn't even know what Robuster was,

8:17

forget about specialty Robuster. Robuster

8:20

was not even something which people would want to talk

8:22

about.

8:22

I mean it's like I just potentially

8:25

thought that you know it's easier for me to

8:28

go with a product which people don't know

8:30

or are not aware. But the reputation

8:33

of Robusta beans and the reason that Arabica

8:36

beans are so much more popular is that Robusta

8:38

doesn't taste good.

8:40

People will just grow up on this fallacy

8:43

that Arabica is special and Robusta

8:45

is bad. Yes

8:47

you do have very special Arabicas I'm not

8:49

trying to put down Arabica coffee. Arabicas

8:52

do have some very unique characteristics and flavors.

8:55

What I don't like is people talking about the fact

8:57

saying that Arabica is good coffee but Robusta

8:59

is bad. Why can't people accept the fact

9:01

that Robusta is good? Arabica is good.

9:04

Taste it, give it a fair chance

9:06

if you like it, excellent, you don't like it, you don't

9:08

like it. I mean that's fine.

9:12

After the break I give Robusta

9:14

a try.

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10:01

After all this talk of Robusta coffee, I decided

10:04

to try and hunt down a cup for myself. All

10:07

right, going into my local coffee shop here. See

10:10

if they've got any Robusta. Hey, how

10:12

are you? Hey, good. How are you? Good. Do

10:15

you have any coffee made from Robusta beans? Oh,

10:17

we don't. Yeah, I know. I think

10:19

they're all Arab. Yeah. Arabica.

10:22

I'm with the Wall Street Journal on the podcast. Robusta

10:24

is still pretty hard to find.

10:26

In fact, none of the handful of coffee

10:28

shops I went to served it. And when

10:30

I asked baristas about it, it didn't really seem

10:32

like they liked it. Would you guys mind sharing your opinion

10:34

as coffee aficionados

10:37

about Robusta beans? I think it's because

10:40

they're cheaper.

10:44

Definitely a cheaper bean. I feel like the flavor

10:46

profile on them when you roast them too after is

10:48

just not the same quality

10:51

as like Arabica. Yeah. And

10:53

there's something about it. It's like darker and more bitter. I'm not really into

10:55

it. It is more bitter in my opinion. Yeah.

10:59

What did you think of it when you tried it? Me? I

11:01

don't

11:02

like coffee. Don't like coffee when

11:04

you work in a coffee shop? We

11:06

have a lot of tea here too, by the way. Eventually,

11:09

I found a bag of Robusta beans at a grocery

11:11

store.

11:12

It was made by Nguyen Coffee Supply, a

11:14

coffee roaster in Brooklyn that makes high-end Robusta.

11:18

Hmm. The

11:22

beans look

11:24

almost a little bit different. They

11:27

look sort of rounder and a little bit lighter color.

11:34

I brewed a cup with my trusty French press. Definitely

11:37

has a much earthier

11:39

smell to it, that's for sure.

11:47

Hmm. I mean, it's

11:49

definitely not bad. Robusta

11:51

coffee is different from the coffee I'm used to.

11:54

It's darker, richer, earthier.

11:57

It's less acidic and more bitter. But

12:00

this new type of robusta definitely doesn't

12:02

taste like fuel the way John described.

12:06

A lot of the young

12:08

coffee geeks and the folks who are founding

12:11

cafes today who say actually we think robusta

12:13

can be good. They're trying to break that cycle and what they're

12:15

trying to do is they're saying if we can create this

12:17

specialty market for robusta,

12:20

if we can show robusta farmers that if

12:22

they invest in their crop, we'll pay more

12:24

for it because it's good because it's

12:26

better, then we'll actually be able

12:28

to remove the stigma from robusta. He's well proved

12:30

to the world that there's nothing wrong with it. It's

12:32

just a matter of how it was grown.

12:34

For farmers that are struggling to grow Arabica,

12:37

John says they're embracing this new demand

12:40

for robusta. It's growing really

12:42

fast. And that's in part because in a couple

12:44

different countries, namely Brazil, a lot

12:47

of farmers are switching to robusta because they realize

12:49

that it grows better in their region. Nguyen

12:52

Coffee Supply, the company that made the beans

12:54

I tried earlier, is one of the companies pushing

12:56

hard to change robusta's image. The

12:59

company even started a pledge with more

13:01

than 150 signatures to change the narrative around

13:04

robusta. For

13:05

farmers, it is kind of an

13:08

exciting time, even if there is a stigma

13:10

against it, it's worth a try. For some,

13:13

that means switching crops from Arabica

13:15

to robusta, but for others, it

13:17

means just investing more in their robusta

13:20

because there's now a market for it.

13:25

And for mainstream coffee companies, John

13:28

says robusta could be in their future too. For

13:30

instance, Pete's Coffee says it's starting

13:32

to look into robustas and it might start

13:34

serving them one day.

13:36

How real do you think this move toward robusta

13:39

is? Or is it just like a marketing

13:41

ploy by big coffee?

13:45

Or robusta growers, you know, who are trying

13:47

to create a movement?

13:49

Yeah. You

13:51

know, I think obviously the people who

13:53

I quoted in the story, I think

13:55

they're all very genuine. So, I

13:57

think they do think robusta has been.

13:59

in Delta Bad Hand and deserves to

14:02

be given another shot.

14:04

If you're cynical, you would say, well, this movement

14:07

is great for coffee companies because it's actually

14:09

just an opportunity for them to cut costs.

14:12

And with pizza, I don't think that this

14:14

is really a cynical

14:17

move on their part to say that we're exploring robust.

14:19

I expect actually that they were struck by this

14:21

idea that robust was just automatically

14:24

relegated to lesser coffee and they thought, well, wait,

14:27

let's re-examine this one, say if robust can be good.

14:29

And there are all sorts of reasons why it might be good

14:31

for the planet. So let's give this a real look. So

14:33

I don't really think

14:34

this is a ploy by big coffee, but I do think big

14:36

coffee could potentially serve to benefit

14:38

a friend in the end.

14:42

Nishant, the Robusta grower in India,

14:45

says in the future, he doesn't want people to

14:47

even think about what kind of beans their coffee's

14:49

made out of. Don't judge coffee

14:51

based on Arabic or Robusta. Just let

14:54

your senses and your taste buds

14:56

take over. At least be open

14:58

to the idea of tasting coffees, tasting different

15:00

experiences. I'm happy if

15:03

you are happy because that is your

15:05

moment, your space, when you have that cup of coffee,

15:08

if it takes you back to a very happy memory

15:10

space, I'm happy for that. And that's

15:12

what I want to contribute, that happiness

15:14

should last with you for a long

15:15

time.

15:17

I'm really craving a cup of coffee

15:19

after this conversation. Enjoy it,

15:21

my friend.

15:27

This episode was originally published

15:29

in March 2023. The

15:33

journal is a co-production of Gimlet and The Wall Street Journal.

15:36

We'll be back on Wednesday with the

15:38

first episode of

15:39

our new series, With Great Power. It's

15:42

about the rise of superhero movies. You

15:45

won't want to be in the world without the new series, but

15:48

it's about the rise of superhero movies. You

15:50

won't want to be in the world without the new series, and

15:52

you won't want to be in the world without the new series. It's

15:55

about the rise of superhero movies.

15:58

You won't want to miss it.

15:59

Thanks for listening. See you then.