YEMENIA: THE COFFEE DISCOVERY OF THE CENTURY

The biggest discovery in the recent history of the Arabica coffee species has been announced by Qima Coffee!

A little background first. As we have mentioned before, after the discovery of wild coffee bushes in Ethiopia, they were brought to Yemen (around 600 years ago). The coffee plant then was cultivated into a farmed crop, adapting to the Yemeni soil and climate and the ‘domesticating’ process over the next hundreds of years, before finally being brought to Europe. (Side note – the Yemeni trading port, out of which the trading ships departed was (and still is) called Mokha, giving the name to the terms ‘mocha’, ‘moka’, – but more on that another time).

Drinking coffee gained its rightful popularity on the European continent, and so did farming it locally. As a result, nowadays over 98% of the world’s known cultivated varieties of Coffea arabica can be traced back to Yemen.

Now, onto the scientific side of things. Within the species of Arabica, there exist dozens of varieties which fall under several groups termed ‘Mother Populations’.

The four known Mother Populations in Coffea arabica are: Ethiopian accessions, Typica Bourbon, SL-34, and SL-17. 

Qima took on a project to investigate and map out Yemen’s genetic landscape, to understand better the nature and potential of the farming industry there. After years of comprehensive research, they made one of the most significant findings in coffee history.

As they have recently announced, a discovery of an entirely new, 5th Mother Population, previously unknown to the coffee world, was made.

It was given the name Yemenia.

Yemenia lots were cupped and scored together with the Alliance for Coffee Excellence. An independent jury panel of 35 cuppers from 24 leading global coffee companies across 14 countries have evaluated the quality of these newly found coffee beans… 

And it was found to be exceptional. In fact, some of the lots were ranked amongst the highest in the world, with cupping scores of 90+.

As a group, the Yemenia coffees gained the highest average score, and in fact made Yemen the highest scoring origin country in this year’s Cup of Excellence evaluation.

What does that mean for the future of the coffee world? 

There is a whole new genetical group of coffee varieties to explore, the first cuppings of which showed unprecedented results. Being 1 of just 5 groups, and already showing leading scores in quality evaluation, it has the potential to transform the whole market of Arabica coffee. 

But beyond that, Yemnia has the potential to tackle the biggest threat to the coffee industry today – climate change. It is a whole separate topic to cover, but to put it shortly, it can be a source of more resilient types of coffee plants, capable of adjusting to more harsh environmental conditions. 

What does that mean for Yemen and the Yemeni coffee farmers? 

Of course, if the demand for the Yemenia coffee lives up to the (very well-grounded) expectations, this will mean outstanding inflow of resources into the development of Yemeni coffee industry. It can be the catalyst of change for the livelihood of the Yemeni coffee farmers. It can bring hope and a bright future for the whole country, being torn by war and an economical and humanitarian crisis for too long.

We encourage you to learn more about this discovery via Qima Coffee official website and their announcement webinar, covering in detail all the topics covered in this blog.

The information provided in this post has been adapted from the Qima Coffee website and the webinar video recording.