Taiwan Hsu Tingyeh - Typica - Looproom Collaboration

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Hsu Tingyeh’s coffee is something that we look forward to most during the off-season. The wait is now over though, and we’re so glad that he’s back on the menu—this season being represented by two incomparable washed lots. This one, the typica, yields an abundance of sweet and slightly tart gooseberry, bouquets of fresh-picked violets, and a distinct milk-tea creaminess and mellow tannic quality in the cup that we find to be absolutely delightful. Given the particular quality, complexity, and cleanness of this lot, it seemed like the perfect fit to release in collaboration with our partner in Taipei, Looproom Coffee.

Zhou Wu Mountain farm, located at 1.300 masl in the Chashan Village of Chiayi County, was founded in 2001 by Tingyeh when he adapted the high-mountain oolong fields of Zhou Wu to specialty coffee cultivation. At present, the farm is sized at roughly 7 hectares. In addition to growing SL34, Tingyeh also cultivates geisha, typica, and purpurascens. On the farm, absolutely everything is done in-house, from seed germination to drying and milling, placing complete control over the coffee’s final cup profile in the hands of Mr. Hsu.

Typica is one of the most ubiquitous and well-known varieties of C. arabica, particularly in South America. It is characterized by its high quality potential at altitude, plant height, very low production yield, and susceptibility to major coffee diseases. Typica originated in southwestern Ethiopia, and was taken to Yemen in the 15th or 16th century. By the turn of the 18th century, typica taken from Yemen was already being cultivated in India. In 1696 and 1699, typica seeds were taken from the Malabar Coast of India and planted on the island of Batavia—today’s Java in Indonesia. It is these seeds which provide the genetic stock for what is known and distinguished today as the distinct typica variety. In 1706, a single typica plant was shipped from Java to Amsterdam, where it was planted in the royal Dutch botanical gardens; in 1714, a typica plant descended from this Dutch royal tree was shared with the French royalty, who then used the genetic material from this single plant to cultivate coffee in Suriname, French Guiana, Brazil, Martinique, Jamaica, the West Indies, Santo Domingo, Cuba, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and in essence, the remainder of European colonial possessions in the Caribbean, Central, and South America. Because of its low yield, and vulnerability to leaf rust, typica is less popular than it used to be, but remains common in the Americas and South East Asia.