Excelsa Coffee

Excelsa coffee is a rare, tart-and-spicy-tasting coffee grown across parts of Central Africa and, commercially, in the Philippines, Vietnam and India. Botanists have reclassified it more than once: officially folded into the liberica species in 2006, then split back out by newer genomic research published in 2025.

What is excelsa coffee?

Excelsa is a large coffee tree closely related to liberica, sharing much of that species' tolerance for heat and unusual growing conditions. It was long treated as its own species under the name Coffea excelsa, alongside two other closely related names, Coffea dewevrei and Coffea dybowskii, that botanists eventually determined referred to essentially the same plant. Today, Coffea dewevrei is the accepted scientific name for the species most buyers know commercially as "excelsa."

Is excelsa coffee the same as liberica?

This is where excelsa's story gets more complicated than most coffee species. In December 2006, botanists Aaron Davis, Rafaël Govaerts, Diane Bridson and Piet Stoffelen published "An annotated taxonomic conspectus of the genus Coffea (Rubiaceae)" in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, which folded Coffea excelsa, Coffea dewevrei and Coffea dybowskii together as synonyms of a single variety, Coffea liberica var. dewevrei — in effect demoting excelsa from its own species to a variety within liberica. For nearly two decades, that was the accepted taxonomy, and it's the framing used on the species-comparison page for arabica coffee.

More recently, newer genomic, morphological and distribution data have prompted a partial reversal. A 2025 study led by Davis and colleagues, published in Nature Plants, re-divided the liberica group into three separate species: Coffea liberica itself (in upper West Africa), Coffea klainei (west-central Africa), and Coffea dewevrei — the plant sold commercially as excelsa coffee — restored as its own species, centered on Central Africa. Coffee taxonomy, in other words, is still being actively revised as researchers gather better genetic and field data, and a shopper is likely to see "excelsa" used loosely as a species name in the market regardless of which technical classification currently applies.

Where does excelsa coffee grow?

Excelsa's wild range runs across Central Africa, including the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Uganda, according to the Specialty Coffee Association. Commercially, though, it's grown well outside that range, mainly in the Philippines, Vietnam and parts of India, where farmers have planted it as an alternative to arabica or robusta. That gap between where excelsa evolved and where it's actually farmed today is common among the rarer coffee species covered on this site, and it's part of why national production statistics for excelsa are thin: it rarely shows up as its own line item, usually folded into broader "other coffee" or liberica-group totals.

What does excelsa coffee taste like?

Excelsa is generally described as tart, with notes of chocolate and spice, distinguishing it from liberica's more purely tropical-fruit character, according to the Specialty Coffee Association. It's typically sweet, with medium body and medium acidity. Its caffeine level is described by the Specialty Coffee Association as comparable to arabica's, rather than markedly higher or lower — one more way it doesn't fit neatly alongside arabica or robusta's more familiar profiles.

What share of world coffee production is excelsa?

Excelsa is a niche crop, usually grouped with liberica in production statistics because the two are so closely related and so rarely tracked separately; together they make up a small fraction of world output, well under robusta's much larger share. The Specialty Coffee Association notes that liberica and excelsa production has been increasing recently, off a very small base, as interest in both species grows.

Why does excelsa matter now?

Like liberica, excelsa tolerates higher temperatures than arabica and shows useful resistance to some common coffee pests and diseases, according to the Specialty Coffee Association — qualities that matter more each year as growers in traditional arabica regions contend with a warming climate and, in some countries, worsening coffee leaf rust outbreaks. That combination of heat tolerance and an unusual, well-liked flavor is why researchers and some specialty roasters are giving excelsa a second look, even while its taxonomy is still being sorted out.

How does excelsa compare with Jamaica Blue Mountain?

Excelsa and Jamaica Blue Mountain make an instructive contrast beyond flavor. JBM's identity has been stable for centuries — a known Typica arabica grown in a legally defined area — while excelsa's very species name has been redrawn twice in under twenty years as science catches up with a plant that never got as much research attention as arabica or robusta. Both, in their own way, reward a buyer willing to pay attention to where a coffee actually comes from rather than trusting the label alone.