Puerto Rican
Coffee History

In the 1700s coffee from Yemen was introduced to the Caribbean by French explorers. Puerto Rico proved to be the first place where the plant successfully took hold. The tiny island eventually rose to become the 6th largest exporter in the world. Under Spanish rule, Puerto Rico earned a reputation as a premier origin due to its popularity among European royalty, earning it the moniker, “the Coffee of Popes and Kings”.

Over time, political, social, economic, and natural catastrophes converged to edge the sprawling coffee Haciendas of the Island’s golden age out of business and into lesser, more efficient varietals, abandoning the heirlooms that had brought Puerto Rican coffee to its pinnacle. Since then, Puerto Rico’s coffee has gone through many phases— but thus far, none have led them back to the top. Most modern efforts have abandoned the original coffee varieties and focused on selecting new coffees, bred for high yields and disease resistance under monoculture, with direct sun and chemical inputs. In the process, the grand varietal Typica 401 and the artisanal farmers who cultivate it were left behind to the point of near extinction.  Your only hope of finding a descendant of this living history would be to venture deep into Puerto Rico’s rugged interior and search through the forgotten forests of abandoned mountaintop haciendas.

Our discovery of Typica 401 growing wild in the Forgotten Forest represents a re-birth and a re-awakening of the great Puerto Rican tradition of specialty coffee.   The wild coffee traces its ancestry to the first coffee brought to Puerto Rico from Yemen in the early 1700s which mutated in Puerto Rico’s unique island conditions to emerge as “Seleccion de Puerto Rico” scientifically recognized by the World Coffee Research Lab in Montpellier, France as Typica 401. By cultivating those wild seeds in thoughtful, modern methods and supporting local farmers with organic agroforestry practices, Forgotten Forest is re-introducing this grand varietal and energizing a growing movement of local farmers reclaiming the glory of the Puerto Rican terroir and cultivating coffee that competes at the highest levels globally.