Laurina

Laurina — also called Bourbon Pointu (“pointed Bourbon”) — is a coffee variety famous for one unusual trait: it contains only about half the caffeine of ordinary Arabica coffee, while still cupping as a refined, delicate specialty coffee. It is not decaf and nothing is stripped out of it; the low caffeine is natural, baked into the plant’s genetics.¹ That combination — a gentle, low-buzz cup that still tastes exceptional — is why it has drawn growing attention, most recently by winning the Varietals category at the 2025 Best of Panama.

Where it came from

Laurina is a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety, discovered on Réunion Island (formerly Île Bourbon) in the Indian Ocean — the same island that gives Bourbon coffee its name. The mutation makes a distinctive plant: a compact, cone-shaped dwarf bush with pointed cherries and beans, which is where the “Bourbon Pointu” name comes from. Its formal botanical designation is Coffea arabica var. laurina.²³

The variety was nearly lost by the mid-20th century and only revived in the early 2000s, once specialty buyers saw its potential both as a distinctive cup and as an answer to a growing appetite for lower-caffeine coffee.⁴

Why the low caffeine matters — and costs so much

Green Laurina beans hold roughly 0.6% caffeine by weight, against about 1.2–1.5% for standard Arabica and 2.2–2.7% for Robusta.⁵

That low caffeine is a double-edged sword. In the coffee plant, caffeine works as a natural pesticide — it helps fend off insects and disease. With so little of it, Laurina is highly vulnerable to coffee leaf rust (a fungal disease that devastates coffee trees) and to pests. Growers largely manage this by planting at higher altitudes, where pest and disease pressure is lower. Combined with naturally low yields and slow maturation, this makes Laurina difficult and expensive to grow at scale — which is a big part of why it stays rare and pricey.⁶

What it tastes like

Laurina is prized for a delicate, refined cup — often compared to high-end Geisha, but softer and more subtle:

• Floral and tea-like — jasmine, white tea, orange blossom.
• Bright fruit — citrus, stone fruit (peach, apricot), sometimes berries or fig.
• Sweet — a pronounced natural sweetness, sometimes likened to honey.
• Light-bodied with clean acidity and a gentle, lingering finish.
• Very low bitterness — a direct consequence of the low caffeine, since caffeine is one of coffee’s bitter compounds.

Because the flavours are so delicate, gentler brewing (pour-over at slightly lower water temperatures) tends to show it off better than aggressive methods like espresso. Lots typically score in the mid-80s on the Specialty Coffee Association 100-point scale, with the best exceptional lots reaching higher.⁷

Competition record

• 2018 — World Brewers Cup. Emi Fukahori of MAME in Zürich won the World Brewers Cup in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, using a Laurina lot named “Frevo” produced by the Brazilian estate Daterra in Cerrado Mineiro.⁸ Perfect Daily Grind describes the lot as anaerobically fermented (fermented in a sealed, oxygen-free vessel); contemporaneous reporting names the variety and lot but not the process — see Emi Fukahori for the caveat. This was a landmark moment — it put Laurina on the specialty-competition map and challenged the idea that Brazilian coffees couldn’t compete at the very top.⁹
• 2025 — Cumbres de Colombia auction, national record. A natural-processed Laurina lot, “Mavicure Hills”, grown by Café Granja La Esperanza in Trujillo, Valle del Cauca, scored 94.25 and sold for $2,194.10/kg ($13,137.30 total) to Brew92 of Saudi Arabia on 22 October 2025 — the highest price ever paid for a Colombian coffee.¹⁰ Notable because records of this size are almost always Panamanian Geisha; see Café Granja La Esperanza for the full lot details.
• 2025 — Best of Panama, Varietals category. A Laurina lot from Hacienda La Esmeralda won the Varietals category — the class for non-Geisha coffees — selling at auction for roughly $3,647/lb to a buyer in Beijing.¹¹ It was part of Esmeralda’s unprecedented sweep of all three BoP categories, which also won the estate the Panama Cup. Note the nuance: Laurina won the non-Geisha class, while Geisha lots still took the competition’s top scores and record prices that year. See Best of Panama for the full price table.

To verify

Several widely repeated economic and history claims trace to a single source (Valor International, 2025-07-31), which could not be independently fetched to confirm: that a Daterra Laurina microlot sold for $149/lb in 2018 (vs ~$2.90/lb for conventional Arabica); that Laurina’s plant mortality is roughly three times that of standard Arabica; that it took Daterra 14 years to adapt Laurina to Brazilian conditions; and that Brazil’s Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) began studying the variety in 1932. Treat these as reported-but-unverified until an official or second independent source confirms.

To verify

One blog source states that Starbucks sold a limited Nicaraguan Laurina lot in 2015, credited with raising the variety’s profile. Not independently corroborated here — confirm before quoting.

Related

• Bourbon — the variety Laurina mutated from
• Geisha — the variety Laurina is most often compared to
• Hacienda La Esmeralda — grew the winning 2025 BoP Varietals Laurina
• Daterra — grew the Laurina that won the 2018 World Brewers Cup
• Café Granja La Esperanza — grew the Laurina that broke Colombia’s national auction record in 2025
• Emi Fukahori — brewed it
• World Brewers Cup — the competition that made its name
• Best of Panama · Panama Cup — where its 2025 win happened
• Coffee scoring · Cupping — how its cup quality is judged

Official links

• Official site — World Coffee Research Arabica variety catalogue — note: the catalogue carries no dedicated Laurina / Bourbon Pointu entry

Footnotes

1. World Coffee Research — Arabica variety catalogue ↩

2. Perfect Daily Grind — Could low-caffeine coffee varieties replace decaf? ↩

3. Sprudge — Coffee basics: what is Laurina coffee? ↩

4. Podium Coffee Club — The Laurina coffee varietal ↩

5. Eleven Coffees — Naturally low-caffeine coffee: it’s called Laurina ↩

6. Green Coffee Collective — Laurina glossary entry ↩

7. Homegrounds — Laurina coffee ↩

8. ANBA News Agency — Brazilian coffee wins 2018 World Brewers Cup ↩

9. Perfect Daily Grind — The rise and fall of ultra-rare coffee varieties ↩

10. Tea & Coffee Trade Journal — Café Granja La Esperanza breaks record with the most expensive Colombian green coffee ever sold at auction — confirmed via WebFetch ↩

11. Best of Panama — official competition site ↩