A natural mutant of a Yemeni variety acclimatized on Reunion Island, formerly called Bourbon Island, the Bourbon Pointu almost disappeared permanently following the end of slavery.
The development of sugar cane has also contributed to this. However,the Bourbon Pointu is one of the oldest and most unique varieties in the world. Fortunately, a little more than a decade ago, its cultivation was reborn thanks to the passion of Japanese from Ueshima, CIRAD, Frédéric Descroix, and a dozen producers from the Bourbon Pointu Cooperative. Today it is considered one of the best and most sought after coffees in the world.
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Botany
Bourbon coffee is a Coffea, of the Rubiaceae genus. In the Coffea, more than 120 species flourish on the surface of the globe, in the intertropical regions, and mainly in Africa and the Mascarene Islands. Among these 124 species, few are edible, and the best known and consumed are Robusta (Canephora) and Arabica. As in the vine where Vitis, the genus, is divided into Vitis vinefera (the one that gives wine) and a myriad of other Vitis such as the Virginia creeper, each of the Vitis is expressed in populations or varieties. These are the grape varieties, which are in turn differentiated into infinite or almost infinite subsets inherited from the terroirs and history. These are the different colors of the grape varieties, as for the Pinot which can be white, grey, butter, meunier, black etc. For coffee, it is the same thing. Bourbon Pointu is like all Arabica, a coffea arabica, whose variety is called Laurina. Thus, in Reunion Island you can visit the House of Laurina.
Contrary to the other species like Robusta or Liberica, all the Arabica find their roots in Ethiopia either directly (and rarely) or via Yemen (for the Bourbon) or even India or Indonesia (for the Typica and its descendants). The Bourbon comes from Yemen. It has a tight and oblong grain shape, typical of Ethiopian varieties, often and erroneously called Mocha, but it has mutated, as is often the case with Arabica, on the soil of the highest island in the Indian Ocean. The locals and observers called it Pointed because its shrub takes the shape of a spruce, whereas coffea are generally of more flattened or horizontal shape. Other mutants called natural because without human intervention are very popular, such as the Blue Mountain and the Maragogype.
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History
At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, the present-day Netherlands (United Provinces at the time) and France were at war in Europe and were fighting for commercial domination of the world. A real botanical race was launched. The Dutch were the first to plant coffee plants, probably obtained in India, Indonesia (Java) and in the botanical garden of Amsterdam. The French followed them closely and after a first failure to cultivate a local variety and then another failure to acclimatize Yemeni coffee, they succeeded in launching a coffee production on the island of Bourbon, today and since 1793, Reunion Island.
It is to Dufresne d'Arsel that we owe this feat, and especially to the will of the metropolis to boost the settlement of the island by granting land and slaves to those who would like to settle there. The cultivation of Bourbon was launched.
Bourbon then spread to other regions of the world, such as East Africa and the West Indies. And soon, a mutant was discovered (XIXth century), the Laurina.
Reunion Island was then the point of diffusion of Bourbon, today a very diffused and very appreciated Arabica variety, as well as the land of choice for Laurina, a variant of Bourbon.
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Gastronomy
This coffee contains half the caffeine of other Arabicas (0.4 to 0.75% versus 1.2 to 1.6%). It is also characterized by good acidity and low bitterness.
The sensory experience is unique, combining power and delicacy. It has a silky texture, full body and an extremely complex aromatic palette ranging from red fruits to leather, citrus and lychee.
There are a thousand ways to describe the taste experience of a Bourbon Pointu. If one day you are lucky enough to be able to taste it, poured in a grègue (traditional coffee maker of Reunion Island), you will live an exceptional moment.
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Production and marketing
The cultivation of Bourbon pointu is done by wet method, with double fermentation, whereas the Reunionese used to produce their coffee for family consumption by dry method. Productivity is extremely low, and this is probably why Laurina, if planted elsewhere, in less qualitative terroirs, is often little cultivated.
Bourbon pointu is one of the most expensive coffees in the world, behind Kopi Luwak, which is explained by its rarity and the endemic nature of the plants required for its cultivation. What is its price? A kilogram of Bourbon Pointu costs about 459 euros. This is three times more than the Jamaica Blue Mountain.
