Keith assured me that he was aware of the problem and Jittery Joe s only served shade grown arabica coffee. The traditional coffee is shade grown arabica. The robusta was found growing wild in Zaire in 1898 but was not cultivated commercially until about 1950 when the demand for instant coffee required increased production. The infamous W.H. Cowgill developed robusta hybrids that would grow in full sun in Guatemala. Costa Rica was the first country to adopt full sun coffee with the result that today almost all coffee from Costa Rica is sun grown.
Robusta coffee is harsher than arabica and is generally considered inferior.
Robusta does out produce arabica and in Brazil s flat fields allows for mechanical picking. Robusta, however, puts the planter on the downward fertilizer insecticide spiral. Sun grown robusta fields in Mexico, Central America and South America also destroy winter habitat for a third of the migratory birds that breed in the United States. A typical shade grown arabica field hosts up to 150 bird species plus 73 wildlife species and 66 species of trees. A sun grown robusta field is lucky if 50 species of birds visit.