Chiroso Coffee: Colombia's Mystery Variety With an Ethiopian Secret

The name is Colombian slang for something elongated. The genetics, according to the most recent research, are Ethiopian. The variety itself was found growing in a highland municipality in Antioquia that most specialty buyers had never heard of. Chiroso is one of specialty coffee's more interesting recent discoveries — a variety whose origins are still not fully settled, whose cup profile draws instant comparisons to Gesha, and whose presence in the Colombian specialty market has grown steadily since a Cup of Excellence lot put it on the map in 2014.

Chiroso is grown primarily in Urrao, a municipality in southwest Antioquia, Colombia. It sits at altitude in the western Andes — the same mountain system that produces some of Colombia's finest specialty coffee — and its elongated bean shape, unusual for a Colombian variety, prompted local producers to give it a name before anyone had fully explained where it came from.

A Name With No Agreed Origin

"Chiroso" is rural Colombian slang for something slightly elongated. The beans are longer than standard Caturra or Castillo cherries, with a shape that local producers compared to the achira, a Colombian biscuit. The name stuck before the genetics were understood.

The initial assumption was that Chiroso was a natural mutation of Caturra. Caturra is ubiquitous in Colombian coffee production — a compact, high-yield Bourbon mutation that became the commercial backbone of the country's Arabica sector. An elongated-bean Caturra variant appearing in Urrao's highlands was plausible enough that producers labeled it "Caturra Chiroso" and treated it as a local curiosity.

Genetic testing has challenged that assumption significantly. As Perfect Daily Grind's 2024 investigation into Chiroso documented, research institutions studying Chiroso's DNA have found it is not related to the Bourbon-Typica group at all — which would rule out Caturra as its parent. Instead, the genetic evidence points toward Ethiopian landrace origins: Chiroso appears to be a variety that somehow traveled from East Africa to Antioquia, with no clearly documented route for that journey. Research has identified two distinct phenotypes in Urrao — one with deep red cherries and one with yellow fruit — with different leaf shapes between them, suggesting the variety may have arrived as more than one plant or seedlot.

How an Ethiopian landrace arrived in Urrao is, as one Colombian coffee professional put it, "part of the myth of the variety." No reliable research has traced the pathway. The genetic evidence says Ethiopian origin; the historical record offers no explanation.

The 2014 Cup of Excellence Breakthrough

Chiroso's entry into the international specialty market came through competition. Pergamino Coffee, a roaster and exporter based in Medellín, encountered Chiroso at a 2012 Cup of Excellence Colombia auction — not yet labeled by variety, but standing out for its sensory characteristics. They bought the lot and began growing Chiroso themselves, eventually planting approximately 40 hectares of the variety.

Wider international attention followed in 2014, when a Chiroso lot won first place at the Colombia Cup of Excellence. The winning cup showed delicate, tea-like florals that stood apart even among Colombia's celebrated specialty output — a profile that specialty buyers recognized as more closely resembling Ethiopian landrace coffee than the clean, bright Colombian profiles they were used to from Caturra or Castillo production. That result put the variety on buyers' radars and began the slow process of varietal identification that has since made Chiroso a named option in Colombia's specialty export market.

Agronomics: Caturra Characteristics With Different Genetics

The disconnect between Chiroso's genetics and its agronomic behavior is one of its more intriguing aspects. Despite genetic evidence pointing away from the Bourbon-Typica group, Chiroso grows like Caturra: compact plant, light green leaves, high yield at altitude, and susceptibility to coffee leaf rust (CLR).

This means Chiroso fits within Colombia's established smallholder farming model without requiring significant agronomic adjustment. Producers in Urrao's highlands grow Chiroso using the same management practices as Caturra — which contributed to its early spread, since adopting the variety carried none of the transitional costs that a fundamentally different plant architecture would require. The yield profile is compatible with specialty-oriented production: high enough to make economic sense, compact enough to manage intensively at altitude.

The CLR susceptibility is the same vulnerability Caturra has, and the same one that drove Colombian coffee development toward disease-resistant varieties like Castillo and Colombia. Chiroso producers in Urrao manage rust through conventional fungicide programs and altitude advantage — rust pressure decreases at higher elevations, and most Chiroso production is at altitudes where disease pressure is lower than in valley-floor production.

What Chiroso Tastes Like

The cup profile is why Chiroso has attracted specialty buyer attention despite its relative obscurity. The dominant character is floral and aromatic — tea-like florality, chamomile, red rooibos, and Earl Grey-style bergamot, alongside citrus brightness and stone fruit sweetness. Peach, melon, and orange appear as supporting fruit notes. Acidity has the brisk, clean quality associated with tea rather than the sharper citric profiles of washed Colombian Caturra.

The comparison to Gesha coffee comes up immediately and regularly among buyers who taste Chiroso. Both share a floral, aromatic complexity that stands outside the conventional Colombian specialty profile. The distinction is that Chiroso reads as more herbal — the tea-note complexity is pronounced, and there's a softness to the aromatic character that differs from Gesha's more intensely floral expression. Chiroso's fruit notes tend toward stone fruit and tropical fruit rather than Gesha's characteristic jasmine and bergamot.

Washed Chiroso shows the floral and tea-like qualities at their clearest. Natural-processed Chiroso, which is less common but increasingly available from Urrao producers, adds fruit-forward depth — berry and tropical fruit character that reinforces the Ethiopian landrace connection. At altitude above 1,700m in Urrao's western Andes growing environment, cup scores in the mid-to-high 80s on the SCA scale are achievable with well-managed production.

Two Phenotypes, One Name

Field research in Urrao has identified two distinct Chiroso phenotypes growing alongside each other: one with deep red cherries and one with yellower fruit. The two phenotypes also have different leaf shapes, which suggests they may not share a single origin — they could represent two separate introductions of Ethiopian landrace material to Urrao, or natural variation within a broader landrace population. From a buyer's perspective, this introduces variability within the Chiroso name: lots labeled Chiroso may come from red-cherry trees, yellow-cherry trees, or an interplanted mix of both.

The flavor implications of phenotype are not yet well documented in the specialty literature. Red and yellow cherry selections in other varieties — Red Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon being the obvious comparison — often produce meaningfully different cup profiles, with yellow-cherry variants tending toward tropical fruit and the red-cherry variants toward stone fruit and more classic berry notes. Whether the same pattern holds in Chiroso's phenotypes hasn't been formally studied, but producers in Urrao increasingly separate lots by phenotype when volumes allow — a practice that, as it generates more cupping data, will clarify what the distinction means in the cup.

For buyers purchasing Chiroso from specialty importers, asking whether the lot is from a single phenotype or a mixed-tree harvest is worth doing. The variety is still young enough in the specialty market that few producers have the scale to offer phenotype-specific lots consistently, but the practice is developing.

Chiroso and Colombia's Variety Frontier

Chiroso sits within a broader wave of variety exploration that has made Colombia one of the most interesting origins for specialty buyers over the past decade. The country's combination of altitude range, processing infrastructure, and producer sophistication has made it a testing ground for varieties — Caturra, Pink Bourbon, Sidra, and now Chiroso — that produce cups well outside Colombian coffee's traditional profile.

What distinguishes Chiroso from the others is the origin mystery. Pink Bourbon is a known Bourbon mutation. Sidra's genetics are debated but largely understood. Chiroso's Ethiopian landrace connection, with no documented path explaining how it arrived in Urrao, gives it an additional layer of intrigue that specialty buyers find compelling. The variety is growing — Pergamino has encouraged producers in other parts of Colombia to plant it — but production remains centered in Urrao, and the specialty market for named Chiroso lots is still developing.

Finding Chiroso Coffee

Chiroso is available but not common. Look for it from specialty roasters with direct sourcing relationships in Antioquia, and specifically from exporters who work directly with Urrao producers. Varietal identification matters — a generic "Colombian specialty" label won't indicate Chiroso. Roasters who label by variety, producer, and municipality are the sourcing channel where Chiroso appears.

Cup of Excellence Colombia results are the most reliable benchmark for quality within the variety — Chiroso lots have placed consistently in the competition since 2014, and the auction results provide both quality scores and producer identification that serious buyers can follow.

Final Thoughts

Chiroso is the variety that shouldn't work — a plant that grows like Caturra but cups like an Ethiopian landrace, named for its bean shape, with a genetic origin story that no researcher has fully explained. The fact that it produces one of Colombia's most distinctive specialty cups anyway makes it one of the more compelling variety stories in contemporary specialty coffee. Whether its origin question ever gets resolved, the cup quality speaks clearly enough.

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Further Reading

• Caturra: Brazil's Volume Variety and What It Means for Specialty Coffee
• The Coffee Lover's Guide to Coffee Varieties
• Ethiopian Heirloom Coffee: The Wild Varieties Behind Ethiopia's Extraordinary Cups

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Chiroso coffee?
Chiroso is a Colombian coffee variety grown primarily in Urrao, Antioquia. Initially believed to be a Caturra mutation (and often called Caturra Chiroso), genetic testing has linked it to Ethiopian landrace varieties rather than the Bourbon-Typica group. It is named for its elongated bean shape — "chiroso" is rural Colombian slang for something slightly elongated. It produces a distinctive floral, tea-like cup profile.

What does Chiroso coffee taste like?
Chiroso produces a floral, aromatic cup with tea-like florality — chamomile, red rooibos, Earl Grey — alongside citrus acidity and stone fruit sweetness. Peach, melon, and orange are common supporting notes. The profile draws regular comparisons to Gesha coffee but reads as more herbal and soft rather than intensely floral. High-altitude washed Chiroso from Urrao can score in the mid-to-high 80s on the SCA scale.

Where does Chiroso coffee come from?
Chiroso is grown primarily in Urrao, a municipality in southwest Antioquia, Colombia. It grows at high altitude in the western Andes. Despite genetic evidence linking it to Ethiopian landrace varieties, how it arrived in Colombia is undocumented. It has been planted more widely across Colombia since specialty buyers began paying attention after a 2014 Cup of Excellence Colombia win.

Is Chiroso the same as Caturra?
No, despite early assumptions and the common label "Caturra Chiroso." While Chiroso grows agronomically similarly to Caturra — compact plant, high yield, CLR-susceptible — genetic testing shows it is not related to the Bourbon-Typica group that includes Caturra. The genetic evidence points to Ethiopian landrace origin rather than a Caturra mutation.

How does Chiroso compare to Gesha?
Both Chiroso and Gesha produce floral, aromatic cups that stand apart from conventional specialty coffee profiles. Gesha's florality tends toward jasmine and bergamot with intense aromatic lift; Chiroso's tends toward tea-like florality — chamomile, rooibos — with more herbal softness and stone fruit. Chiroso is generally more accessible in price than Gesha and is growing in availability from Colombian specialty producers.