Laurina (Bourbon Pointu): The Low-Caffeine Arabica

Laurina, also called Bourbon Pointu for its pointed beans, is a naturally low-caffeine mutation of Bourbon coffee that has grown on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion since at least the early 1700s. Nearly extinct by the 20th century, it was revived by Japanese researchers starting in 1999 and today survives mainly in tiny, expensive lots.

Where did the Laurina coffee variety come from?

Laurina is a natural mutation of Bourbon coffee that arose on Île Bourbon — now Réunion, off the coast of Madagascar — where the French planted Yemeni arabica seed in the early 1700s. The French Wikipedia entry on the variety dates the first documented sighting of the mutation to 1711, credited to a French East India Company official, Louis Boyvin d'Hardancourt; the coffee was initially called "Café du Roy" and later "Café Leroy," after an early grower. Its more familiar name, Laurina, was given later by the French botanist Auguste Chevalier for the plant's resemblance to laurel, and the "Bourbon Pointu" nickname refers to the beans' pointed shape.

How did Laurina nearly disappear, and how was it revived?

Production of the variety was actually banned by the French East India Company in 1718, before resuming around 1770, and Réunion's coffee industry — Laurina included — was largely wiped out by a disease epidemic around 1880. What remained mostly vanished during the 20th century, hurt further by coffee rust and fire ant infestations. The turning point came in 1999, when Japanese researcher Yoshiaki Kawashima visited Réunion and located a small number of surviving trees; a formal revival project launched in 2002 found about 30 plants still growing in traditional gardens, according to French Wikipedia. Farmer trials ran from 2003 to 2007, the first harvest of the revived crop came in 2005, and commercial lots reached the Japanese market in 2007, where the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan rated some of it "premium" quality.

Why does Laurina have less caffeine than other arabica?

Laurina's defining trait is caffeine content well below typical arabica. French Wikipedia puts Laurina's caffeine at roughly 0.4 to 0.75% of dry bean weight, against 1.2 to 1.6% for standard arabica; reporting from Perfect Daily Grind cites separate figures of about 0.2 to 0.3% versus 1.4 to 1.8% for regular arabica, and describes low-caffeine varieties broadly as containing "less than 50%" of standard arabica's caffeine. The two sets of figures don't match exactly, but they agree on the basic point: Laurina runs at less than half, and by some estimates closer to a sixth, of ordinary arabica's caffeine level, while remaining far from truly decaffeinated coffee, which is stripped to under 0.1% caffeine.

What are Laurina's plant traits, yield and disease resistance?

Laurina is a naturally dwarfed plant, with short internodes, small leaves and thin branches that make it noticeably more compact than standard Bourbon. Its cherries are elongated and pointed at both ends, growing in dense clusters of up to 15 per node; unusually, around 5% of its fruits contain a single round seed rather than the usual flat-sided pair, and about 7% contain three seeds, according to French Wikipedia. Perfect Daily Grind reports that caffeine functions like a chemical defense for coffee plants, so Laurina's low level leaves it more exposed to pests and disease — roughly 30% of trees reportedly need replanting each year. The variety also performs best only at high altitude and produces modest yields, which keeps cultivation costly.

What does Laurina coffee taste like?

Cuppers describe Laurina as delicate and refined rather than bold. French Wikipedia cites tasting notes of orange, mandarin and even lychee in some lots, calling the cup "sweet, fruity and elegant." Perfect Daily Grind describes one premium example as showing guava, honey and plum, and characterizes the variety more broadly as offering melon and citrus notes — a reminder that, as with most rare varieties, the specific profile depends heavily on the individual lot and processing.

How do growers and buyers use Laurina?

For growers, Laurina is a high-cost, high-risk crop: low yields, frequent replanting and a need for high altitude make it far more expensive to farm than mainstream arabica, and its low caffeine leaves it more vulnerable to pests. That cost gets passed on — French Wikipedia describes Laurina as ranking among the world's most expensive coffees historically, priced not far behind Kopi Luwak, with 100-gram lots sold in Japan around 2007 for about 7,350 yen, several times the price Jamaica Blue Mountain commanded there at the time. For buyers, Laurina functions less as an everyday coffee and more as a novelty or gift-market item, marketed on genuinely low caffeine rather than on yield or price efficiency.

How does Laurina compare with Jamaica Blue Mountain?

Jamaica Blue Mountain is grown from ordinary-caffeine Typica trees, so the two coffees appeal to very different buyers: Blue Mountain for its mild, balanced, low-bitterness cup at normal caffeine levels, Laurina for a genuinely different physiological experience alongside its own delicate, fruity profile. Both are grown in small, geographically specific pockets — Blue Mountain in a legally defined part of Jamaica, Laurina almost exclusively on Réunion — and both trade heavily on scarcity and reputation rather than yield. Readers who want to compare a caffeine-typical heritage variety can explore Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, or look at Laurina's parent variety on the Bourbon page, alongside other named varieties on the varieties hub and the arabica species overview.