Visualizing coffee’s variety

This week, World Coffee Research (WCR) released a new poster celebrating key coffee varieties from around the world. The poster is now available for free download on WCR’s website.

The poster visually represents the lineage and relation of different coffee varieties included in the World Coffee Research Coffee Varieties Catalog, which profiles over 100 coffee varieties. The poster and catalog cover varieties from 22 countries globally across the two species of cof­fee plants that are in wide cul­ti­va­tion worldwide—C. ara­bi­ca (known as Ara­bi­ca), and C. canepho­ra (known as Robusta). The poster, like the catalog, is meant to be a prac­ti­cal tool and guide for cof­fee pro­duc­ers, but does not aim to rep­re­sent an exhaus­tive list of all cof­fee vari­eties in exis­tence.

The visualization was developed by UK design agency webDNA to accompany the re-design and re-launch of the World Coffee Research Coffee Varieties Catalog earlier this year, and an interactive version is displayed on the catalog's homepage. After receiving multiple requests for printable versions of the visual, WCR decided to release the resource as a poster, similar to the globally popular Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel, which was created using WCR’s foundational Sensory Lexicon and later co-released in a printable format in collaboration with the Specialty Coffee Association. The coffee varieties poster is available for anyone to download and print free of charge (print-ready versions for standard US-specific and international poster formats are available).

WCR is resolute in its commitment to making research and its resulting knowledge products openly accessible to all stakeholders across the coffee value chain. With this, the organization invites coffee producers, researchers, institutes, roasters, retailers, cuppers, and others to join in the celebration of coffee’s variety by printing the poster locally, displaying it in their respective offices and shops, and sharing it widely across their own networks.

If you have any questions about printing or would like to request the poster in a different format than those available via the resource page linked above, please contact Communications Manager Maeve Holler.

Understanding the poster

Want to learn more about the Coffee Varieties Poster and how to read its various elements? Download the explainer document below.