Catimor, Kent, and Indian Robusta Varieties: Reading Them in the Cup
Catimor, Kent, and India's named Robusta varieties turn up on specialty bags far less often than SLN-795 or SLN-9, and little published material describes what they taste like. ICB's catalog shows that each leaves a recognisable pattern across three fields on the bag: the tasting notes, the process and the roast. This guide documents those patterns and how to read them.
Most Indian bags that name a variety say SLN-795, SLN-9 or Chandragiri. A smaller group say Catimor, Kents, Selection 274, CxR or Old Peradeniya. These names are listed in ICB's guide to Indian coffee varieties but not explained there in any depth, and outside that guide they are rarely explained at all.
The tasting-note line is where these varieties show most. A single note says little. Put the notes next to the process and roast fields, compare them with the Arabica catalog as a whole, and the five varieties start to separate. As of November 2026, ICB lists 22 coffees labelled with generic Catimor, 12 with Kent, 17 with CxR, 9 with S-274 and 8 with Old Peradeniya. The baseline for comparison is the catalog's 1,048 Arabica listings. Together the five varieties appear on fewer than 70 of the 713 catalog listings that name any variety, which is under a tenth of the variety-labelled coffee on the site.
How to read these numbers: Tasting notes on ICB are written by roasters. ICB does not cup these coffees. The patterns below show how these coffees are described and sold. Each variety has between 8 and 23 listings and almost none carry community ratings, so this guide makes claims about patterns, not about quality.
Five Varieties, Two Species
Catimor is a cross of Caturra and Híbrido de Timor (HdT). HdT is a natural Arabica × Robusta hybrid found on Timor, so Catimor is an Arabica that carries a small share of Robusta-derived genetics, bred in for leaf-rust resistance. The plant is compact and high-yielding. India's named Catimor line is Cauvery (SLN-12), which the Central Coffee Research Institute (CCRI) received from Portugal's CIFC in 1985, according to Counter Culture Coffee's variety notes. When a bag says "Catimor" with no selection number, it may be Cauvery or another HdT-Caturra line.
Kent (often written "Kents" in India) is a Typica-type Arabica selected on Doddengooda Estate in Mysore by A.F. Kent in the early twentieth century, for its tolerance of leaf rust. It is a parent of SLN-795 and of SLN-6. It carries no Robusta genetics.
On the Robusta side, S-274 (formally Sln.1R) is a selection from a Sri Lankan collection and was India's first released Robusta, in the 1940s. It forms the base of most South Indian filter blends and of the Coffee Board's India Kaapi Royale grade. CxR is Coffea congensis × C. canephora. It is diploid, like Robusta, and was earlier grown in the Dutch East Indies under the name "Congusta", according to a CCRI conference paper by Srinivasan and colleagues. Old Peradeniya is a Robusta named after Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. European green-coffee sellers describe it as one of the earliest Robusta seed lots released in India in the 1940s. No primary CCRI record confirming this was found.
CxR is not an Arabica × Robusta hybrid. Neither of its parents is Arabica. The Arabica × Robusta crosses that appear on Indian bags are SLN-6 (S.274 × Kents) and SLN-5B (Devamachy × S.333). Label readers often treat the two groups as one.
| Variety | Species | Parentage | ICB listings | Roasters | Most common process |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catimor (generic) | Arabica | Caturra × HdT | 22 | 13 | Anaerobic |
| Kent | Arabica | Typica selection | 12 | 5 | Mixed |
| S-274 | Robusta | Sri Lankan collection selection | 9 | 4 | Washed-natural blends |
| CxR | Robusta-type | *C. congensis* × *C. canephora* | 17 | 13 | Washed, anaerobic |
| Old Peradeniya | Robusta | Sri Lankan origin (attributed) | 8 | 6 | Mixed |
Step One: The Species Line Shows First
The clearest split is between the three Robusta varieties and the two Arabica ones. Among the 23 listings that name S-274, CxR or Old Peradeniya, 74% carry a chocolate note, 57% a nut note and 30% a spice or wood note such as nutmeg, clove or tobacco. None carries a floral or tea note. Across all Arabica listings the figures are 38% chocolate, 24% nut, 16% spice and 16% floral or tea. Fruit notes appear on 57% of the named-Robusta listings against 75% for Arabica.
| Group (listings) | Chocolate | Nut | Spice/wood | Fruit | Floral/tea |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catimor (22) | 36% | 36% | 9% | 95% | 23% |
| Kent (12) | 83% | 17% | 17% | 75% | 0% |
| S-274, CxR, Old Peradeniya (23) | 74% | 57% | 30% | 57% | 0% |
| All Arabica (1,048) | 38% | 24% | 16% | 75% | 16% |
Share of listings carrying at least one note in each flavor family, ICB catalog, November 2026.
The CCRI paper explains the mechanism. It describes ordinary Robusta as a "strong, bitter brew lacking in aroma and acidity". It quotes an earlier assessment of CxR as having "sweetness and soft buttery notes", then concludes that CxR, though better than other Robusta, "is not nearer to arabica because it lacks acidity and flavor." Floral and tea notes depend on aromatics and acidity that Arabica has and Robusta largely lacks, which is why their absence is the most consistent marker in the data. With these varieties, the notes that are missing say more than the ones that are there.
Roast points the same way. Of the 58 Robusta-species listings on ICB, 20 are medium and 18 medium-dark. Only 2 are light. For more on the species split, see Arabica vs Robusta in India.
An outside reference cup: Coffee Review's 2009 blind review of a sun-dried CxR from Sethuraman Estate, Karnataka, described an aroma of caramel, peanut and roasted corn, a heavy and syrupy body, soft acidity, and flavors of malt and toasted grain. It turned slightly astringent as it cooled. (Coffee Review)
Telling S-274, CxR, and Old Peradeniya Apart
Within the Robusta group the samples are small, and the differences follow how each variety is sold as much as its genetics. On CxR listings caramel leads (6 of 17), followed by dark chocolate, dried fruit, fig, cherry and cacao nibs. Most CxR listings come from estates that run fermentation trials, among them Ratnagiri, Sai Ashirwad and Ammikulavi. Dark chocolate appears on 5 of 8 Old Peradeniya listings, with caramel, cream and toast after it, and one of those listings is a washed India Kaapi Royale lot. S-274 listings lean towards nuts (5 of 9), dark chocolate and toast. Only one of the nine names S-274 as the sole variety. The rest are espresso and filter blends.
The naming runs the other way from the planting. S-274 is the Robusta main variety the Coffee Board lists for every Robusta-growing region, and it is the base of filter coffee. Yet across ICB's 58 Robusta-species listings, CxR is named about 13 times, Old Peradeniya 6 and S-274 about 3. Only 24 of the 58 name a variety at all. Roasters seem to name a Robusta variety when it is part of what they are selling, such as a single-estate fermented lot. S-274, the variety most planted, mostly goes into blends without a name. A buyer looking for a single-origin S-274 on ICB will find one listing. The variety names on Robusta bags follow what roasters are doing with processing, not what is planted.
Step Two: Read Catimor Through Its Process
Catimor's reputation among specialty buyers comes mostly from its early generations, which cuppers criticised for astringency, woody notes and flat acidity. Later research gives a more mixed picture. A 2015 study of 38 genotypes by Sobreira and colleagues found that some HdT and Catimor lines cupped well, with chocolate, caramel, fruit and floral notes.
In ICB's catalog, 95% of Catimor listings carry a fruit note, against 75% for Arabica overall, and 23% carry a floral or tea note. On those numbers alone Catimor would look like an unusually fruity variety. The process field says otherwise. Fifty-five percent of Catimor listings are fermentation-led (anaerobic, experimental or carbonic maceration), compared with 27% across all Arabica, and only 2 of 22 are washed. Ten are light roasts. Most of the fruit in these notes comes from fermentation-led processing, not from the variety. SLN-795 and SLN-9 lots are washed about a third of the time; Catimor lots are washed one time in eleven. Roasters are using Catimor as material for processing trials rather than as a variety to present on its own.
The few washed and lightly processed lots show what lies underneath: nut, chocolate, caramel, butter and fig. Attikan Estate's Catimor Culture Washed is listed with butter, fig, milk chocolate, pecan and toast. On anaerobic lots the note card fills with berry, grape, kiwi and papaya, as on Blue Tokai's Garigekhan Estate CAT-129. Supply is also concentrated. Kudiraipanjan Estate in the Shevaroys appears on 7 of the 22 Catimor listings and Gungegiri Estate in Chikmagalur on 5, through five roasters. Two estates account for 12 of 22.
Cauvery is sold differently: Cauvery is the named Catimor, and on paper it has the same parentage, but its 17 listings are roasted darker (7 medium-dark, 5 medium). Its notes lean on caramel, chocolate, almond and spice, and 6 of the 17 are Arabica-Robusta blends. Generic "Sarchimor" listings (11, of which 8 are washed) read as chocolate, orange marmalade and dried fruit.
![Attikan Estate Catimor [Culture Washed] [Espresso Roast]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fik.imagekit.io%2Findiancoffeebeans%2Fproducts%2Fquick-brown-fox-coffee-roasters%2Fquick-brown-fox-coffee-roasters-attikan-estate-catimor-culture-washed-espresso-roast-1&w=3840&q=75)
Step Three: Kent's Narrow Chocolate Signature
Kent has 12 listings from 5 roasters, and they come from three main sources: Black Baza Coffee's smallholder lots from Biligiriranga Hills and Wayanad (4), Salawara Estate in Sakleshpur (3), and Balanoor Plantations in Chikmagalur (3). With three sources supplying most of the listings, the Kent profile on ICB describes those farms as much as the variety. Chocolate in some form (dark chocolate, cocoa powder, cacao nibs or milk chocolate) appears on 83% of them, more than twice the Arabica rate of 38%. No Kent listing carries a floral or tea note, and the listings average fewer notes each than Arabica overall (3.2 against 3.5).
Kent has no Robusta in its lineage, so this is not a species effect. The pattern fits a clean, low-acid Typica-type cup roasted medium or darker: 4 Kent listings are medium, 3 dark and 2 medium-dark. SLN-795, which has Kent as a parent, carries a similar chocolate-and-nut character.
Check the species line on Kent bags: One Kent-labelled listing in the catalog is tagged as Robusta. Kent is an Arabica, so a "Kent Robusta" label is either a labelling error or a blend. The roaster's description usually makes clear which.
A Working Method for Reading a Bag
Check the species line and the roast
A Robusta share, or a roast of medium-dark or darker, makes the Robusta varieties more likely.
Look for floral, tea or citrus notes
Where they are present, the coffee is very unlikely to be S-274, CxR or Old Peradeniya.
Read the process before the notes
On anaerobic, carbonic and experimental lots, tropical and berry fruit usually comes from processing. This matters most for Catimor.
Watch for a narrow chocolate cluster
Three or so notes, mostly chocolate or cocoa, on a medium or darker Arabica fits the Kent pattern.
Find the estate
For these varieties a few estates supply most of the catalog, and the estate name often says more than the variety line.
The same variety is labelled in several ways. "Kents" is Kent. "Selection 274", "SLN 274", "SL 274", "S274" and "Sln.1R" are all S-274. "Congensis", "C × R" and "CXR" are CxR. "Old Peridenia", "Peridinia" and "Peridiinia" are Old Peradeniya. "Canephora" stands in for Robusta, mostly on fermented lots. "Cauvery", "Kaveri" and "SLN-12" are the named Catimor.
None of this works like a blind test. Process and roast change these cups more than variety does, so the patterns narrow the possibilities and the label and estate confirm them. The data also shows how these varieties are being used. Named Robusta varieties turn up mostly on single-estate lots, many of them fermentation trials sold as "Canephora", and Catimor is mostly a base for processing trials. Kent is grown on a small number of farms. The Robusta coffees listed on ICB are a practical place to compare these patterns across bags.
References
- Srinivasan, Kumar, Amaravenmathy and Santaram, Central Coffee Research Institute — Robusta-like Coffee Plants with Arabica-like Cup Quality: Myth or Possibility? (2004)
- Sobreira et al. — Potential of Híbrido de Timor germplasm and its derived progenies for coffee quality improvement (Embrapa, 2015)
- Counter Culture Coffee — India's Arabica Coffee Varieties
- Coffee Review — Indian CxR Mandarin (2009)