Papayo

Papayo is one of several mysterious coffee varieties that have appeared across Latin America in recent years. The story almost always follows a similar pattern: a farmer observed some coffee plants that looked strange, assumed them to be a mutation of either caturra or bourbon—depending on whether the plants were short or tall—and isolated the coffee during picking, eventually to learn that the cup quality was especially good.

Then, years later, it would often be revealed that the variety in question was neither caturra nor bourbon, but often had a recent genetic ancestor in Ethiopia. We've heard this story first of gesha, but then of varieties like chiroso, pink bourbon, ají bourbon, catiope, mejorado, and wush wush (though there is legitimate reason for skepticism in certain cases).