Every so often a coffee upends a quiet assumption. Most of us treat caffeine as inseparable from the bean, and we treat low-caffeine coffee as something engineered in a factory. Laurina, the variety the coffee world also knows as Bourbon Pointu, disproves both ideas. It carries roughly half the caffeine of an ordinary Arabica, not because anything was stripped away, but because the plant simply makes less of it. This is nature's decaf, and it arrives wrapped in one of the most romantic origin stories in coffee, a story that begins on a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean and very nearly ended in extinction.
What is laurina coffee?
Laurina coffee is a naturally occurring mutation of the Bourbon variety of Arabica. It is instantly recognizable in three ways: a compact, conical, laurel-like tree; slender beans that taper to a distinct point at the tip (hence pointu, French for pointed); and, above all, a caffeine level of around 0.6% by weight against the 1.2 to 1.5% of a typical Arabica. The single most important thing to understand is that this is a variety, not a processing method. The low caffeine is written into the plant's genetics, exactly as flavor, bean size, or ripening speed would be. No solvent, no water bath, no carbon filter is involved. You are drinking the coffee the plant chose to grow.
The name has a botanical logic. Early growers thought the small, glossy, densely packed leaves resembled the laurel bush, so the plant became Laurina. Its earliest cultivators also knew it as Le Roy, after the grower credited with first singling the tree out, and some suspect the name Laurina is a faint echo of it. Today the two names in common use, Laurina and Bourbon Pointu, are treated as interchangeable, though purists sometimes reserve "Bourbon Pointu" for coffee grown on its island of origin.
Born from a mutation on Reunion
The Laurina story is inseparable from the island of Reunion, a French territory east of Madagascar that was once called Ile Bourbon. In 1715, French colonists carried coffee seedlings from the port of Mocha in Yemen and planted them on the island. Those plants were the ancestor of the entire Bourbon line, one of the two great pillars of cultivated Arabica alongside Typica. Sometime around the turn of the nineteenth century, growers on Reunion noticed something odd: a handful of Bourbon plants had grown into a tidy, tapering, Christmas-tree shape and were setting smaller cherries that came to a point. This was Bourbon Pointu, and it was not a hybrid or an import. It was a spontaneous mutation of the Bourbon already growing on the island.
Botanists have since traced the change to a single recessive gene, written lr. A plant needs two copies to show the Laurina traits, and that one gene has a remarkable domino, or pleiotropic, effect. It shortens the spaces between the plant's nodes to produce the dwarf, conical silhouette; it points the cherries and beans; and it roughly halves the caffeine the plant produces. One tiny genetic edit, in other words, rewrites the whole character of the tree. That is why Laurina is treated as a milestone in coffee genetics rather than just a curiosity in the cup.
Why the low caffeine matters, and why it is a problem
Caffeine is not there for our benefit. In the wild it works as the plant's chemical bodyguard, a bitter compound that discourages insects and slows the growth of competing seedlings nearby. Laurina, having dialed its caffeine down to about 0.6%, effectively drops its guard. That single fact explains both the variety's charm and its fragility. For the drinker, it means a cup with a fraction of the usual stimulant load, gentle enough to enjoy in the evening. For the farmer, it means a plant that is more appealing to pests and more prone to disease than its ordinary Bourbon parent.
The agronomic downsides pile up quickly. Laurina is a slow grower and a shy yielder. Seedling mortality in the first year runs high, and the delicate cherries can drop from the branch in heavy tropical rain before they are ever picked. Because the trees are small and the harvest is thin, a grower earns far less per hectare than they would from a robust modern cultivar. For comparison, this is the opposite end of the spectrum from Robusta, which pairs a caffeine level near 2.2% with hardy, high-yielding vigor. Laurina trades all of that vigor away for delicacy, which is precisely why it kept vanishing from farms whenever coffee prices tightened.
Near extinction and a remarkable revival
Through the nineteenth century Bourbon Pointu was Reunion's pride, exported to Europe as a refined coffee said to be kinder to sleep and digestion. Then the twentieth century arrived, and with it cheap high-volume coffee from larger producers, devastating cyclones, and the island's own shift toward sugarcane. Coffee cultivation on Reunion collapsed, and Laurina slid toward oblivion. By the late twentieth century it survived only as scattered feral plants growing wild in gardens and along old field edges.
Its rescue reads like a detective story. In the early 2000s a local veterinarian located roughly thirty surviving wild Laurina plants across the island. That discovery drew in Jose Yoshiaki Kawashima, a research director at the Japanese roaster UCC Ueshima Coffee, who led a multi-year project to bring the variety back into cultivation. Between 2002 and 2006 the team propagated tens of thousands of seedlings, re-established plantations, and produced the first meaningful commercial harvest of green Bourbon Pointu in generations. The first packages went on sale in Japan in 2007, and the tiny early lots were treated as treasures, commanding some of the loftiest prices in specialty coffee at the time. A grower cooperative was formed to keep the momentum going, and a variety that had been all but written off was suddenly one of the most talked-about coffees on earth.
Where Laurina grows today
Reunion remains the spiritual home and still produces small, prized quantities of Bourbon Pointu. But the revival also scattered Laurina seed to other terroirs where curious producers were willing to accept the low yields in exchange for a rare and distinctive lot. In Brazil, the Daterra estate has grown Laurina for well over a decade and pushed it through experimental anaerobic and carbonic-maceration lots; one such semi-carbonic macerated lot fueled a World Brewers Cup victory in 2018, which did more than anything to reintroduce the variety to the specialty scene. It is also grown in Costa Rica, and it turns up in single-farm lots from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and beyond. Supply everywhere is small and irregular, which keeps Laurina firmly in the cult-variety tier alongside prizes like Geisha. If you spot a bag, seize the chance, because there is no steady pipeline.
What it tastes like, and how to brew it
Low caffeine is the headline, but it is the flavor that earns Laurina its devotion. Expect a cup that is bright yet soft, with a gentle, tea-like acidity rather than a sharp snap, and a sweetness that is markedly higher than standard Bourbon. Common descriptors read like a fruit bowl crossed with a garden: orange and tangerine, lychee, fig, and a floral top note, all carried on a light, silky, almost tisane-like body with very little bitterness. Some tasters pick up more savory or herbal edges, tarragon, walnut, a creamy lactic quality, which only adds to the sense that this is a coffee to sip slowly and think about.
Roasting Laurina is a tightrope walk. The small, dense, low-caffeine beans give the roaster a narrow window: push too light and the cup tastes green and sour; push too dark and its fragile aromatics scorch away. Most roasters aim for a carefully judged light-to-medium profile that lets the natural sugars bloom without flattening the florals. In the cup at home, treat it the way you would any delicate high-grown coffee. A pour-over or a well-managed immersion brew flatters its clarity far better than a heavy espresso pull, and a slightly finer grind with a gentle, even extraction helps coax out the sweetness. Because the beans are on the smaller side, dial your grinder a touch finer than you would for a comparable washed Bourbon and taste as you go.
Ultimately, Laurina is less a daily driver than a conversation. It is a living reminder that the diversity of coffee is written in genes on real hillsides, that a single recessive mutation can hand us a naturally gentle cup, and that a variety can be pulled back from the edge of extinction by a few determined people. If you want to understand how far the Arabica family can stretch, few beans tell the story as vividly. Explore more of that family through our wider coffee guides.
Frequently asked questions
Is Laurina coffee the same as decaf? No. Decaf coffee is regular coffee that has had most of its caffeine removed after harvest, using water or solvents. Laurina is a natural variety that simply produces about half the caffeine of a normal Arabica while it grows, so nothing is added or stripped away. It is best thought of as low-caffeine by nature rather than decaffeinated.
How much caffeine does Laurina actually contain? Laurina green beans hold roughly 0.6% caffeine by weight, compared with about 1.2 to 1.5% for typical Arabica and around 2.2% for Robusta. In practical terms a cup delivers roughly half the caffeine of an ordinary coffee, though the exact amount depends on your dose, grind, and brew method.
Why is Laurina coffee so rare and expensive? The plant is a shy yielder, slow to grow, and, because its low caffeine removes a natural defense, more vulnerable to pests and disease. Farmers harvest far less per tree than with modern cultivars, and it nearly went extinct in the twentieth century. Small, irregular supply plus real cultivation difficulty keeps it scarce and costly.
What does Bourbon Pointu mean, and is it different from Laurina? Bourbon Pointu and Laurina are two names for the same coffee. "Bourbon Pointu" refers to its origin as a pointed-bean mutation of Bourbon on the island of Reunion, formerly Ile Bourbon, while "Laurina" comes from the plant's laurel-like leaves. Some sellers reserve "Bourbon Pointu" for coffee grown on Reunion itself.
What does Laurina coffee taste like? It is delicate, sweet, and clean, with a soft tea-like acidity and very little bitterness. Typical notes include orange, tangerine, lychee, fig, and florals, carried on a light, silky body. Many drinkers compare the experience to a fruit-infused tea more than to a bold, heavy coffee.