Maracaturra
Maracaturra is an arabica coffee variety made by crossing Maragogipe — the giant-bean mutation of Typica — with Caturra, the short Brazilian mutation of Bourbon. The name is the two parents stuck together, exactly like Pacamara, and the goal was the same: keep Maragogipe’s enormous beans, lose Maragogipe’s terrible yield and unmanageable height.
You can spot it in the bag. The beans are so large the trade sells them as “elephant beans,” which is a real commercial advantage and a real roasting problem — a bean that big heats unevenly, so it browns on the outside before the middle is done.
It is a rare coffee. Almost all of it comes from Nicaragua, in small blocks on farms that grow it for the cupping table rather than for volume.
Where it came from — and why nobody can pin it down
Every source agrees on the parents. Almost nobody agrees on the place or the date.
The most repeated account says Maracaturra appeared naturally, not in a breeding programme, in Brazil in the late 1800s (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch; Steampunk Coffee Roasters, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). Others describe it as a Nicaraguan find from the mid-twentieth century or as late as the 1990s (Green Coffee Collective; Singular Coffee, both accessed 2026-07-23).
There is a hard reason the story stays murky, and it is the single most useful fact on this page:
Maracaturra is not in the World Coffee Research variety catalogue. The catalogue — the specialty industry’s reference database, maintained by World Coffee Research — has entries for both parents, Maragogipe and Caturra, but the URL for Maracaturra returns a 404 and the variety does not appear in the catalogue index (World Coffee Research variety catalogue, checked 2026-07-23 via WebFetch).
That absence explains the whole mess. For Caturra or Pacamara there is a breeding institute with records — an IAC or an ISIC — and a catalogue entry stating who selected it and when. For Maracaturra there is no institute and no catalogue entry, so what circulates instead is a single paragraph of trade description, rewritten from site to site. Treat every origin date you read for this variety as folklore until a breeding record turns up.
To verify
Brazil in the late 1800s is chronologically difficult. Maragogipe was found near Maragogipe, Brazil in 1870, but Caturra was not identified until 1915–1918 (both per the World Coffee Research catalogue, via this wiki’s Typica and Caturra notes). A cross of the two cannot predate its younger parent. Either the “late 1800s” date is wrong, or it refers to something other than the Maragogipe × Caturra cross. No source found here notices the contradiction.
To verify
The agronomic description is one paragraph, copied. The sentences about compact stature, abundant foliage, wind resistance, leaf-rust susceptibility and “high level of maintenance” appear in near-identical wording on Wikipedia, Perfect Daily Grind and multiple roaster blogs. Wikipedia cites Perfect Daily Grind and the green-coffee importer Mercanta, and the roasters appear to be repeating the same text. That is one source with many mirrors, not independent corroboration — the underlying trait ratings have never been published by a research institute.
What the plant is like
| Trait | Maracaturra | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Species | Coffea arabica | Both parents are arabica |
| Bean size | Very large (“elephant bean”) | Maragogipe |
| Leaf size | Large | Maragogipe |
| Stature | Short, compact, dense foliage | Caturra |
| Wind damage | Resistant, thanks to the low compact frame | Caturra |
| Coffee leaf rust | Susceptible — needs high maintenance | Caturra is rated very high susceptibility by World Coffee Research |
| Yield | Reported as good for a big-bean variety, poor next to a commercial one | The point of the cross |
Read the right-hand column and the variety explains itself. Maracaturra is an attempt to buy Maragogipe’s bean size using Caturra’s body — and it inherits Caturra’s rust problem along the way, because that vulnerability came from Bourbon and travels with every Caturra descendant.
The clearest statement of intent comes from the Salvadoran producer Mauricio Salaverria, who planted it looking for “a more productive varietal than both the Maragogype and the Pacamara” that still cupped well (Perfect Daily Grind, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). That is the trade-off in one line: everyone wants the big-bean cup, nobody wants the big-bean harvest.
To verify
Altitude figures don’t line up. Wikipedia gives 1,400–1,600 m; other specialty sources give a broader 1,300–1,800 m as a preference rather than a limit (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-23; Singular Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23). Both are undercut by the best-documented Maracaturra lot on this wiki: Finca Solidaridad is described at 1,270 m and still scored 90.50 — and that altitude is itself flagged as single-sourced on the farm’s note. Don’t quote a band for this variety.
What it tastes like
The stock description, repeated everywhere, is tropical fruit and bright acidity (Perfect Daily Grind; Wikipedia, both accessed 2026-07-23, both confirmed via WebFetch). No formal sensory rating exists — there is no World Coffee Research quality-potential grade for Maracaturra, because there is no catalogue entry at all.
What there is instead is roasters’ notes on specific lots, which are more concrete and more honest about being one cup on one table:
| Lot | Described as | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Finca Solidaridad, Nicaragua, washed (2025 Cup of Excellence) | Apricot, hibiscus, mango, orange, maple syrup | Retailer description, via Finca Solidaridad |
| Albir family lot, Nicaragua | ”Juicy ripe plums,” creamy mouthfeel | Steampunk Coffee Roasters |
| Unspecified lots | Orange, pear, grape, floral, with chocolate and nuts behind | Alchemy Coffee |
Notice how fruit-forward that is for coffees that are mostly washed — washing usually strips a cup back toward cleanliness and acidity rather than pushing it toward mango and plum. That fruitiness is the reason anyone puts up with the variety’s yield.
One practical warning that only the roasters mention: the very large bean is “much more susceptible to roast defects” (Steampunk, confirmed via WebFetch). A Maracaturra roasted on a curve built for normal beans will scorch outside and stay grassy inside.
Competition record
This is where the variety earns its place, and where the sources need the most care — the Alliance for Coffee Excellence results tables record farm, producer, score and price, but not variety. So a Cup of Excellence placement can be verified from the primary record while the variety attribution still rests on someone’s blog.
| Year | Competition | Lot | Rank | Score | Price | Variety confirmed? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Taza de la Excelencia Nicaragua XXII | El Cambalache (Abner Samuel Zavala), washed | 1st, washed | not published | auction 29 Jun 2026 | Yes — variety named in the official gazette report |
| 2025 | Cup of Excellence Nicaragua | Solidaridad (Ramón Jarquín), washed | 2nd, washed | 90.50 | $14.00/lb | Yes — variety listed as Maracaturra in the ACE record |
| 2021 | Cup of Excellence Nicaragua | El Cambalache (Abner Samuel Zavala), honey | 2nd | 90.75 | 30.30/lb | Yes — variety listed as Maracaturra in the ACE record |
| 2018 | Cup of Excellence Nicaragua | El Cambalache (Abner Samuel Zavala), washed | 4th | 90.23 | not published | Yes — variety listed as Maracaturra in the ACE farm directory |
| 2015 | Cup of Excellence El Salvador | Himalaya – Divisadero (Mauricio Salaverria) | 5th | 89.03 | $9.70/lb | No — see callout |
| n.d. | Cup of Excellence Nicaragua | Albir family lot | 2nd (claimed) | — | — | No — see callout |
Nueva Segovia is where this variety’s record actually lives. Abner Samuel Zavala has placed three times at the Nicaragua Cup of Excellence with Maracaturra from Finca El Cambalache, a farm of roughly three hectares: 4th in 2018 at 90.23 (washed, with anaerobic fermentation up to 60 hours), 2nd in 2021 at 90.75 (honey-processed, split into two 231.48 lb lots at 30.30/lb to Kyokuto Fadie Corporation), and 1st in the washed category in 2026 (ACE farm directory — 90.23 and ACE — Nicaragua 2021, both accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch; 2026 per La Gaceta, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch).
That 2026 result is the strongest argument for the variety on this page. The same producer had just won the 2025 washed category with Geisha at $66/lb — the most reputationally loaded variety in coffee — and went back to Maracaturra the following year and won again.
The 2025 result is the other solid one. Finca Solidaridad, a roughly three-hectare smallholding in Matagalpa worked by Ramón Jarquín, entered a washed Maracaturra of 2,553.99 lb, placed second among the washed coffees at 90.50, and sold the lot for 35,755.86 to a nine-roaster Buying consortium (ACE — Nicaragua 2025, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). Both first-place lots that year, washed and natural, were Geisha — and the washed winner was Zavala’s other farm, La Esperanza.
There is a pattern in those rows worth naming: Maracaturra keeps landing just under the winner. In 2021 El Cambalache missed first by 0.21 points (to Jesus Mountain Coffee Company, 90.96, variety not recorded); in 2025 Solidaridad missed the washed category by 0.23 points, to a Geisha that then sold for more than four times the price. The variety scores with the best coffees in Nicaragua and is consistently outbid by them.
To verify
“Fifth in the Cup of Excellence 2015” is half-confirmed. The ACE record does show a fifth place in 2015 — but in El Salvador, not Nicaragua: Himalaya – Divisadero, Mauricio Arturo Salaverria Caceres, 89.03, sold at $9.70/lb (ACE — El Salvador 2015, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). The ACE table records no variety, so the claim that this lot was Maracaturra comes only from Perfect Daily Grind (accessed 2026-07-23), which profiles the same farm and says the variety “has already won fifth place in Cup of Excellence 2015.” Complicating it further, that article describes Salaverria as planning to process his Maracaturra cherries — future tense, in late 2016. The Nicaraguan reading is contradicted outright: fifth place in the 2015 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence was Fila Alta, Henry Alexander Marin, 88.85 (ACE — Nicaragua 2015, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch), and Wikipedia’s version of the claim cites two Nicaraguan newspapers alongside the Salvadoran-farm article.
To verify
An unattributed second place. Steampunk Coffee Roasters, selling a Maracaturra from growers Martha and Ana Albir in Nicaragua, write that “a Maracaturra lot came in second at the Nicaragua Cup of Excellence competition this year, coming in less than a quarter point under two tying Geisha lots” (accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). The post carries no year. The arithmetic is suggestive — the 2025 Nicaragua gap between the winning washed Geisha (90.73) and Finca Solidaridad’s Maracaturra (90.50) is exactly 0.23 points — but the producers named are different people, and the “two tying Geisha lots” detail is not in this wiki’s record of that competition.
A second candidate year has since turned up, and it fits the wording better. In 2021, a Maracaturra also came second in Nicaragua — El Cambalache at 90.75, 0.21 points under the winner (Jesus Mountain Coffee Company, 90.96), and El Cambalache’s own coffee was split into two lots, 2a and 2b, that tied at the same score (ACE — Nicaragua 2021, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). Splitting a top lot in two is routine here, so the winner may well have been split the same way — which would give literal “two tying” lots above a Maracaturra. But ACE’s 2021 table records no varieties, so whether the winning lots were Geisha is unknown, and the Albir family is still not the producer in either year. Both 2021 and 2025 remain candidates. Confirm against the Alliance for Coffee Excellence archive before repeating.
Where it is grown
Reported growing countries are Nicaragua, El Salvador and Brazil, with scattered mentions of Honduras and elsewhere in Central America (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-23; Green Coffee Collective, accessed 2026-07-23). Sources agree on two things: it is most associated with Nicaragua, and it is rare anywhere — small experimental blocks and single-farm specialty lots, not commercial plantings.
That rarity is not an accident of fashion. A variety with no catalogue entry has no certified seed supply, no published trait data and no breeding programme behind it. A farmer planting Maracaturra is doing it on a neighbour’s recommendation and their own cupping table, which is exactly the profile of a coffee that shows up at competitions and almost nowhere else.
Related
- Maragogipe — the giant-bean Typica mutation that gives Maracaturra its size
- Caturra — the dwarf Bourbon mutation that gives it its frame, its yield and its rust problem
- Pacamara — the other big-bean cross, Pacas × Maragogipe, bred deliberately in El Salvador
- Typica · Bourbon — the two founding varieties standing behind both parents
- Coffee leaf rust — the disease it inherited
- World Coffee Research — the catalogue that does not list it, and why that matters
- Finca Solidaridad · Ramón Jarquín — the best-documented Maracaturra lot on this wiki
- Finca El Cambalache · Abner Samuel Zavala — the Nueva Segovia farm that has placed three times with this variety, in three different processing styles
- Anaerobic fermentation · Honey process — the two processes behind El Cambalache’s 2018 and 2021 results
- Cup of Excellence · Alliance for Coffee Excellence — the competition and the body whose results tables verify (and don’t verify) the claims above
- Buying consortium — how the 2025 Solidaridad lot was actually bought
- Coffee scoring · Cupping — what a 90.50 means
Official links
- Official site — World Coffee Research variety catalogue — the industry’s reference database. Maracaturra has no entry (checked 2026-07-23); its parents Maragogipe and Caturra do.
- Official results — Alliance for Coffee Excellence — the primary record for every competition claim on this page
Sources
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Nicaragua 2025 results and auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — El Salvador 2015 results and auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Nicaragua 2015 results and auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Nicaragua 2021 results and auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — farm directory entry 90.23, El Cambalache, Nicaragua 2018 — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- La Gaceta (Nicaragua) — Cafés de Nueva Segovia destacan en la XXII edición de la Taza de la Excelencia Nicaragua 2026 — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- World Coffee Research — variety catalogue — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch; no Maracaturra entry)
- Perfect Daily Grind — Maracaturra: why a CoE-winning farm grows hybrid varietals — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Wikipedia — Maracaturra coffee — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Steampunk Coffee Roasters — There’s a lot to love about Maracaturra — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Green Coffee Collective — Maracaturra: Nicaraguan elephant bean hybrid — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Alchemy’s A–Z of Coffee: M is for Maracaturra — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Singular Coffee — Maracaturra: un cultivar de café exotique — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Brewlogy — Maracaturra coffee — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Wikipedia — List of coffee varieties — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)