Canario is one of those Brazilian coffee varieties that can be easy to overlook. It has yellow cherries when ripe, it is closely associated with Brazil, and it has a rather more complicated family tree than the name might suggest.
That's because Canario isn't simply another Yellow Bourbon selection. Brazilian cultivar records trace it to a cross between Catimor and Mundo Novo, made by technicians at the Instituto Brasileiro do Café (IBC) and later developed by Fundação Procafé. It was registered in Brazil in 2000.
Where did Canario come from?
Canario was developed in Brazil from Catimor and Mundo Novo. That gives it a very different background from traditional Bourbon varieties, even though its yellow ripe cherries can make the two seem related at first glance.
Catimor brought useful disease-resistance genetics into the mix, while Mundo Novo was already one of Brazil's important commercial arabica varieties. The result was a cultivar with yellow fruit, relatively early maturation and some resistance to coffee leaf rust.
Canario is associated mainly with Brazil and is still relatively uncommon compared with better-known varieties such as Catuaí and Mundo Novo.
Growing Canario
Canario has never become a major commercial variety in Brazil. Fundação Procafé lists its productivity as medium and notes that it is not recommended for commercial use. That helps explain why you are more likely to come across it in smaller, separated lots than in large-scale blends.
Its partial resistance to coffee leaf rust is useful, although it isn't completely resistant. Like any coffee variety, the way it performs depends heavily on the farm, climate, altitude and management around it.
Canario also matures early and produces yellow cherries, making it fairly easy to pick out in the field once you know what you're looking for.
What does Canario taste like?
There isn't one fixed Canario flavour profile, and it would be misleading to treat the variety name as a guarantee of a particular cup. Processing, growing conditions and the individual selection all make a difference.
What we can say is that Canario has shown good cup quality in Brazilian trials. In research published by Embrapa, Canario scored between 84.5 and 86 points in sensory evaluations, placing it in the "very good" category alongside several established Brazilian cultivars.
In the specialty coffees we've tasted, the profile can lean sweet and rounded, with good body and flavours that sit comfortably in the familiar Brazilian spectrum. A Canario natural from Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama, for example, showed hazelnut, chocolate, cream and roasted chestnut, with a little more acidity than the Bourbon grown alongside it on the same farm.
So while Canario can produce plenty of sweetness and body, there is more variation from lot to lot than the varietal name alone might suggest.
Canario and Brazilian coffee
Canario is interesting partly because it doesn't have the same history as Brazil's most widely planted varieties. Catuaí and Mundo Novo were selected for agronomic performance and became hugely important across the country's coffee-growing regions. Canario remained much less widely planted.
That makes a named Canario lot worth paying attention to. When a producer separates it from the rest of the crop, you get a chance to taste what that particular variety and farm can do together.
Quick varietal facts
Varietal: Canario
Species: Coffea arabica
Origin: Brazil
Genetic background: Catimor × Mundo Novo
Fruit colour: Yellow
Maturation: Early
Yield: Medium
Disease resistance: Partially resistant to coffee leaf rust
Commercial use: Not widely recommended for commercial production
Cup quality: Very good in Brazilian trials
Typical character: Sweet, rounded, full-bodied; profile varies with farm and processing
Further reading
- World Coffee Research: Bourbon variety catalogue
- Daily Coffee News: The History and Renewal of Brazil's Yellow Bourbon
- Perfect Daily Grind: Catuaí and Yellow Bourbon - Exploring Brazil's Coffee Varieties