Cafe Ibis - Makmai Robusta

What is Robusta coffee?

The two most common species of coffee are Arabica and Robusta. Arabica tends to be sweeter, less bitter, and is the most common coffee species. Though a lot of blends that say things like "STRONGEST COFFEE EVER" typically have robusta beans mixed with arabica beans. That's because Robusta can have twice as much caffeine compared to arabica. That's also why Robusta tends to taste more bitter.

Robusta has kind of a bad reputation. I suspect that's because you can have really bad robusta. High quality robusta however, can have flavors you're just not going to get with Arabica. Overall Robusta tends to be less acidic and have more body (I think this makes it more rich). In Vietnam its common to do a pour over with Robusta and add condensed milk to it.

A lot of specialty coffee roasters are trying new ways to roast Robusta to make it more palatable since the Robusta plant is a lot easier to grow and more resistant to disease and temperature differences.

Tasting notes

This is by far the best Robusta I've ever had.

Quite bitter, like baker's chocolate almost. I'd definitely recommend some creamer in this one. If you add cream and some sweetener, I get a very rich dark chocolate raspberry flavor.

The bitterness in this is different from a dark roast. A Dark roast's bitterness comes from how much you've cooked it. Essentially, a dark roast is more burnt than a light roast. These Robusta beans are medium-light roast by color, so I think the bitterness is coming from cafffeine. Caffeine bitterness is easily counteracted by cream, much moreso than with a dark roast, so you'll probably need less cream/sugar than you're thinking.

Brewing Notes

With my Aeropress I did a lower temperature. I usually go around 206ºf but this time I did 200ºf, and did a slightly shorter brew time, by like 15 seconds. Robusta is really strong so you don't need to work as hard to brew it. You could also try a smaller dose than usual if it's too strong.