"robusta coffee" news and stories

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

I know you thought we were through with the genus-species-kingdom stuff after high-school biology, but did you know there are two different species of coffee plant? Well, there are: Arabica, or high-altitude grown gourmet coffee, and Robusta, or the more environmentally tolerant (and much cheaper) sort of coffee often found in instant crystals and behind bodega counters around the world.

But is the latter really more "robust" than the haute Arabica? Find out after the jump.