Sarchimor
Sarchimor is not a coffee variety. Like its better-known sibling Catimor, it is a family name covering many separate varieties that share one cross: Villa Sarchi × Timor Hybrid. The name is a portmanteau of the two parents, and that is all it tells you. World Coffee Research says it flatly — Sarchimor is “not a variety” but “a group of many different distinct varieties with similar parentage” (World Coffee Research — T5296, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch).
The logic of the cross is identical to Catimor’s. Villa Sarchi is a dwarf mutation of Bourbon found in Costa Rica — compact, plantable at high density, and helpless against Coffee leaf rust. The Timor Hybrid is a natural Arabica × Robusta accident carrying rust resistance from its Robusta side. Breeders bolted one onto the other.
The only real difference between the two families is which Arabica parent went in: Caturra for Catimor, Villa Sarchi for Sarchimor. Both parents are dwarf Bourbon mutations found independently in different countries, so the resulting trees look and farm much the same. The cup, as it turns out, did not come out the same.
The accession numbers are not the same either
A detail worth knowing, because it explains why the two families diverge. The Catimor lines documented in the World Coffee Research catalogue were built from Timor Hybrid CIFC 832/1. The Sarchimor lines were built from Timor Hybrid CIFC 832/2 — a different accession of the same hybrid population (both figures from the World Coffee Research catalogue, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch).
Different Timor Hybrid material, different Arabica parent, different national institutes doing the selecting. “Sarchimor” is a pedigree label stretched across all of it.
To verify
The founding date and place are unsettled. Sweet Maria’s reports the family was developed “around 1967” at the Centro de Investigação das Ferrugens do Cafeeiro (CIFC) in Portugal (accessed 2026-07-23, cited via the research report only; the same site’s Catimor page blocked automated access on the same date). The World Coffee Research entry for T5296, the canonical Sarchimor line, gives no founding year for the group and instead dates the line to field trials at CATIE in Costa Rica in 1971. These are not necessarily in conflict — CIFC made the crosses, CATIE trialled them — but no primary CIFC record was located here. Do not state 1967 as a fact.
The named selections are the real varieties
As with Catimor, the honest unit of comparison is the individual named line. Four are documented in the World Coffee Research catalogue.
| Selection | Parentage | Bred by | Country / released | Rust resistance | Yield | Quality at altitude |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T5296 | Timor Hybrid CIFC 832/2 × Villa Sarchi | CIFC, trialled at CATIE | Costa Rica, from 1971 trials | Intermediate | Medium | Good |
| Marsellesa | Timor Hybrid 832/2 × Villa Sarchi CIFC 971/10 | CIRAD–ECOM | Nicaragua, 2009 | Intermediate | High | Good |
| Parainema | A selection of T5296 | IHCAFE | Honduras, 2004 | Highly resistant | Very high | Good |
| IAPAR 59 | Timor Hybrid 832/2 × Villa Sarchi | IAPAR, Brazil | Brazil, year not given | Intermediate | Medium | Low |
All rows from the World Coffee Research variety catalogue (each entry accessed 2026-07-23 and confirmed via WebFetch).
Two things jump out of that table.
Parainema is the strongest rust rating in either family. Across the five Catimor lines this wiki has checked, none rates higher than “intermediate” and one — Costa Rica 95 — rates outright susceptible. Parainema rates “highly resistant”, yields very high, and cups good. That combination does not appear anywhere in the Catimor table. It is also the only line here that went through World Coffee Research’s International Multilocation Variety Trial, evaluated at 23 sites in 15 countries.
Three of four rate “Good” in the cup. The early Catimor workhorses (T8667, Costa Rica 95) both rate “Low” — the bottom of the catalogue’s scale. Sarchimor’s equivalent-generation line, T5296, rates Good. Only Brazil’s IAPAR 59 rates Low, and it was selected for medium-altitude commercial production rather than for a cupping table.
So the useful one-line comparison is: Catimor traded more cup quality away than Sarchimor did. That is a claim about the catalogue’s ratings, not about any particular bag of coffee.
To verify
The research report behind this note attributes Obatã, Tupi and IAPAR 59 to World Coffee Research as Brazilian Timor-derived relatives. IAPAR 59 is confirmed and is explicitly grouped “Introgressed (Sarchimor related).” Obatã and Tupi are not — requests for
/varieties/obata,/varieties/obata-vermelhoand/varieties/tupiall returned HTTP 404 on 2026-07-23, so neither their pedigree nor their Sarchimor membership could be checked against the catalogue. This wiki’s Mundo Novo note independently records an Obatã placing at the 2019 Cup of Excellence Brazil, so the variety plainly exists and competes — its parentage is simply unverified here.
What the plant is like
The agronomic profile is near-identical across the family, and near-identical to Catimor — both inherit a dwarf Bourbon frame.
| Trait | Typical Sarchimor |
|---|---|
| Stature | Dwarf / compact |
| Planting density | 5,000–6,000 plants/ha, single-stem pruning |
| Nutrition requirement | High |
| Coffee leaf rust | Intermediate — except Parainema, highly resistant |
| Coffee berry disease | T5296 tolerant |
| Nematodes | Not resistant to Pratylenchus; partial resistance to some Meloidogyne |
| Optimal altitude | 1,000–1,600 m at the equator, 700–1,300 m at 5–15°, 400–1,000 m above 15° |
Figures from the World Coffee Research entries for T5296, Marsellesa, Parainema and IAPAR 59 (all accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch).
The same practical readings apply as for Catimor. These are hungry trees: 5,000–6,000 plants per hectare needs heavy fertilising to sustain, which rewards farms with capital and punishes farms without. And the altitude bands slide down as you move away from the equator — the same tree wants 1,000–1,600 m in Colombia and 400–1,000 m in southern Brazil.
One caution the catalogue puts in writing for T5296: “not uniform; plants are not stable from one generation to the next.” A farmer saving seed from a T5296 block does not reliably get T5296 back. That instability is a large part of why “Sarchimor” on a bag tells a buyer so little.
What it tastes like — and this time there are numbers
For most rust-resistant families the honest answer is that no verified cupping data exists. Sarchimor is the exception, through Parainema.
Parainema lots have repeatedly placed in the Cup of Excellence Honduras, with published scores, ranks and auction prices — the Alliance for Coffee Excellence’s own results pages, which are primary records:
| Year | Rank | Farm | Score | Auction price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 18 | Los Robles (Ottoniel Sagastume Pineda) | 88.11 | US$8.20/lb |
| 2023 | 24 | Chavelo N°2 (Edgar Jeovanny Rodriguez Tercero) | 87.58 | US$8.40/lb |
| 2023 | 30 | Liquidambar (Marcio Adalberto Paz Andino) | 87.33 | US$9.50/lb |
| 2024 | 22 | Las Rocas (Jorge David Portillo Mejia) | 87.75 | US$14.30/lb |
| 2024 | 26 | El Sile (Andres Fernandez Madrid) | 87.29 | US$17.10/lb |
| 2024 | 27 | Medalla Milagrosa (Walter Ricardo Bautista Leiva) | 87.29 | US$14.20/lb |
Both years fetched from the Alliance for Coffee Excellence results pages on 2026-07-23 and confirmed via WebFetch (Honduras 2023; Honduras 2024).
Read that carefully, because it is easy to over-claim. No Parainema in either year cracked the top 15, and none approached the top of the table. But six lots across two consecutive years scoring 87.3–88.1 and clearing US$8–17 a pound at auction is a real, documented, repeated result — and it is the single strongest piece of cup evidence anyone has for a Timor-derived variety. The Catimor note records that no cupping score, competition result or auction price was found for any Catimor lot. The families are not in the same position on this question.
Also worth noting for what it is: in both years, no lot labelled plainly “Sarchimor,” “Marsellesa,” “Lempira,” “IHCAFE 90” or “Catimor” placed at all. The family competes under the name of its best selection, not its own.
To verify
Generic “Sarchimor” flavour descriptions are marketing prose and they contradict each other. Sweet Maria’s reports “greenish or herbal aspects” that can be “troublesome” in the cup; Sample Coffee rates the family’s quality simply “Good”; an importer listing for a Nicaraguan lot claims “good cup quality, increasing with altitude” with red fruit and cocoa (Aliments du Québec), all accessed 2026-07-23 and cited via the research report only. None presents cupping data. The only defensible numbers on this page are the Cup of Excellence table above and World Coffee Research’s four-step quality ratings. No numeric score exists for generic “Sarchimor” — the label covers too many different plants for one to be meaningful.
Where it actually shows up
Sarchimor’s territory is Central America and Brazil, and it is usually sold under a selection name rather than the family name. The catalogue places T5296 in Costa Rica, Marsellesa in Nicaragua, Parainema in Honduras and IAPAR 59 in Brazil.
Where it does appear as plain “Sarchimor,” it is on importer offer sheets for single-farm lots, generally in Costa Rica’s Central Valley, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
To verify
Four farm-level Sarchimor lots appear in the research behind this note, each on a single importer or roaster page, none independently corroborated and none carrying a published score or price (all accessed 2026-07-23, cited via the research report only):
- Hacienda Sonora, Central Valley, Costa Rica — producer Diego Guardia, natural, 1,300 m, notes of citrus, almond, winey, smooth; listed sold out (Ally Coffee; a differently-described lot from the same farm on Sucafina).
- Finca Reina Elizabeth, San Luis de Grecia, Alajuela, Costa Rica — owner Marvin Barrantes, honey, 1,450–1,550 m, 8 hectares, SHB grade (Sucafina).
- Finca El Salvador, Santa Ana, El Salvador — producer Rodolfo Ruffatti Batlle, 48-hour anaerobic natural, 1,350–1,670 m, notes of marzipan, cocoa nib, black cherry (Sloane Coffee).
- Finca San Antonio, Matagalpa, Nicaragua — the two sources disagree on altitude: a retailer lists 1,035 m under the spelling “Sachimor” with producer Maria Felicitas Mairena de Günkel (Mister Coffee), while another listing gives 800 m (Aliments du Québec). Different plots is the likely explanation, but it is not resolved here.
Treat all of the above as trade listings, not verified farm records.
Why it matters
Sarchimor is the control group for coffee’s oldest argument. Catimor is the reason “rust-resistant hybrid” became a slur in specialty coffee — flat cups, disappointed buyers, and in one documented case a variety that lost the resistance it was built for. Sarchimor ran the same experiment with a different Arabica parent and came out measurably better: three of four catalogued lines rate “Good” in the cup, one rates highly rust-resistant, and one keeps turning up in a national Cup of Excellence auction at 87-plus.
That does not vindicate introgression wholesale. Parainema is one selection, its Cup of Excellence placings sit in the teens and twenties rather than the top, and the family as a whole is unstable enough that seed saved on-farm may not breed true. But it does undercut the flat claim that Timor-derived varieties can’t cup. The trade-off named in Coffee leaf rust — heirlooms cup better and get sick, hybrids survive and cup flatter — is narrower here than anywhere else in the introgressed catalogue.
Related
- Catimor — the sibling family, built on Caturra instead of Villa Sarchi
- Villa Sarchi — the dwarf Bourbon mutation that is the Arabica parent
- Timor Hybrid — the Arabica × Robusta parent, and where the rust resistance comes from
- Robusta — the second species behind that parent, and the original source of the resistance genes
- Parainema — the Honduran selection, and the only Sarchimor with verified competition results
- Marsellesa · IAPAR 59 — the Nicaraguan and Brazilian selections
- Coffee leaf rust — the disease the whole family was built to survive
- Caturra · Bourbon — the dwarf lineage both families are built on
- Cup of Excellence · Alliance for Coffee Excellence — the competition and the body whose results are cited above
- World Coffee Research — keeper of the variety catalogue every agronomic figure here comes from
- CIFC · CATIE · IHCAFE · CIRAD · IAPAR — the institutes that made and released the selections
- Cupping · Coffee scoring — how the quality claims above are settled
- Natural process · Honey process · Anaerobic fermentation — the processing styles on the farm lots listed above
Official links
- Official site — World Coffee Research variety catalogue
- Official site — World Coffee Research variety record: T5296 (Sarchimor)
- Official site — Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Cup of Excellence results
- Official site — Centro de Investigação das Ferrugens do Cafeeiro (CIFC), Instituto Superior de Agronomia, University of Lisbon
There is no single “Sarchimor” record in the catalogue — the group is documented only through its named selections. A request for /varieties/sarchimor returns HTTP 404 (checked 2026-07-23), exactly as /varieties/catimor does.
Sources
- World Coffee Research — T5296 (Sarchimor) — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- World Coffee Research — Parainema — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- World Coffee Research — Marsellesa — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- World Coffee Research — IAPAR 59 — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- World Coffee Research — variety catalogue — accessed 2026-07-23 (no Sarchimor, Obatã or Tupi record; those slugs return HTTP 404)
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Cup of Excellence Honduras 2023 results — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Cup of Excellence Honduras 2024 results — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
- Sweet Maria’s Coffee Library — Sarchimor glossary entry — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Sample Coffee — Catimor and Sarchimor varieties — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Sucafina — Hacienda Sonora San Luis Sarchimor Natural — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Sucafina — Marvin Barrantes Sarchimor Honey — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Ally Coffee — Hacienda Sonora Sarchimor Natural — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Sloane Coffee — El Salvador FES Sarchimor 48N — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Aliments du Québec — L’Orchidea Sarchimor variety specialty coffee — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)
- Mister Coffee — Nicaragua Finca San Antonio Sarchimor natural anaerobic carbonic maceration — accessed 2026-07-23 (cited via the research report only)