Marshell Coffee: Peru's mysterious coffee variety

Caramel, cola-like spice and stone fruit. Marshell has a distinctive flavour profile, particularly for a coffee with such an uncertain family tree.

The story starts on a farm in Cajamarca, Peru, where Grimanés Morales Lizana noticed an unusual coffee tree in 1997. She didn't know what it was. Fourteen years later, a disease outbreak badly affected the plantation, and the unusual tree survived.

Grimanés started propagating it from that survivor and eventually entered the coffee in Peru's Cup of Excellence competition. In 2019, it scored 92.28 points and won. Nobody is completely sure what the variety actually is.

The tree that survived

Grimanés Morales Lizana found the original plant at her farm, La Lúcuma, in San Ignacio province, Cajamarca, in 1997. The tree looked different from the Bourbon, Catuai and Catimor growing around it, but it was left to grow on the farm.

That changed in 2011, when the plantation was badly affected by ojo de pollo, also known as ojo de gallo. The fungal disease is caused by Mycena citricolor and can cause serious defoliation and crop losses in the wet conditions found in parts of Peru. The unusual coffee tree survived.

Grimanés began propagating plants from it, eventually growing more of the coffee and giving it the name Marshell. The name is commonly said to have been constructed from members of her family's names, including her father-in-law Marcelino.

That original story comes from Grimanés herself. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence's farm record for the 2019 winning coffee also records her account of discovering the plant in 1997 and selecting it after the disease outbreak in 2011.

The 2019 Cup of Excellence win

Marshell first attracted serious international attention in 2019. Grimanés entered the Peru Cup of Excellence with a washed coffee from La Lúcuma. It scored 92.28 points, taking first place ahead of a 91.44-point Geisha blend in second and a 91.40-point Catuai in third. Twenty-one farms placed in the final rankings. For a little-known coffee from a farm in northern Peru, it was quite an introduction.

There's a wrinkle in the official record, though. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence lists the winning variety as Costa Rica 95. Grimanés and much of the coffee industry refer to the coffee as Marshell.

That discrepancy means the genetic identity of Marshell shouldn't be treated as settled fact. The 2019 record gives us the name Costa Rica 95, while contemporary coffee reporting described the same coffee as an unidentified Bourbon mutation. Those are very different family trees.

So what is Marshell?

The traditional explanation is that Marshell is a natural mutation of Bourbon. It looks different from the Bourbon plants around it, and producers, importers and roasters have repeated this explanation for years. It's also how the 2019 competition story was commonly reported.

There's another theory. Some industry sources identify Marshell as closely related to Costa Rica 95, a Catimor-group cultivar developed from Caturra and Timor Hybrid 832/1. That gives Costa Rica 95 ancestry from the Timor Hybrid, including Coffea canephora (Robusta).

Commercial genetic testing has pointed in that direction too. UK roaster Full Court Press has reported that testing performed by RD2 Vision identified its Marshell sample as a rare form of Catimor. Falcon Coffees has also reported genetic analysis of Marshell that identified it as Costa Rica 95.

Those results don't completely close the case. They come from individual samples, not from a peer-reviewed study establishing the ancestry of every coffee sold under the Marshell name, and different farms could be using the name for genetically different material.

For now, the safest description is that Marshell is a rare Peruvian coffee type with uncertain genetic origins. The Bourbon-mutation and Catimor or Costa Rica 95 theories are both worth knowing about, but neither should be presented as proven for the whole population.

What does Marshell taste like?

The cups are a little easier to describe than the genetics. Marshell coffees from Cajamarca are often sweet and well balanced, with flavours ranging from caramel and brown sugar through to red and stone fruit. Cola-like spice is another recurring description, while some lots show floral or tropical characteristics.

The Alliance for Coffee Excellence's record for the 2019 winning coffee lists notes including raspberry, tropical fruit, jasmine, cola nut, black cherry, baked peach, papaya, mango, cinnamon and clove. The judges described the cup as creamy, exotic, juicy and very well balanced.

More recent Marshell coffees show plenty of variation. We've seen descriptions ranging from fig and red grape to pomelo, passionfruit, floral notes and chocolate. Processing has an effect too, with washed, natural, honey and experimental fermented lots all appearing from producers in Cajamarca.

One thing we've noticed repeatedly is how much the cup can change as it cools. A coffee can start with caramel sweetness and familiar fruit before becoming noticeably more floral, spicy or wine-like as the temperature drops.

Why farmers are planting Marshell

The Cup of Excellence score is only part of the story. The original Marshell plant caught Grimanés's attention because it survived a serious disease outbreak that affected the rest of her plantation. Other growers and coffee businesses have since reported resilience to diseases including ojo de pollo and coffee leaf rust, which matters in Cajamarca, where coffee is often grown at high elevations in cool, wet conditions that create pressure from fungal diseases.

It's also one reason the possible Catimor connection gets people talking. Catimor-group cultivars are important partly because of their disease-resistance characteristics, although the group is genetically diverse and not every Catimor cultivar has the same resistance profile. World Coffee Research, for example, currently lists Costa Rica 95 as susceptible to coffee leaf rust and ojo de gallo in Costa Rica.

So Marshell's disease resilience is part of its story, particularly given the survival of the original plant, but nobody has established its extent or consistency through replicated varietal trials. What we have instead is farmer experience, ongoing commercial planting and some very good coffee.

Marshell and Cajamarca

Marshell is closely associated with Cajamarca, particularly San Ignacio province and the La Coipa district in the north of the region. Other recent lots have also appeared elsewhere in the wider Cajamarca coffee-growing area.

Many of the farms producing it today sit at around 1,650 to 1,900 metres above sea level. The terrain is steep and farming is often done on relatively small plots, which makes harvesting and processing labour-intensive.

Recent lots show that Marshell is no longer confined to the original La Lúcuma planting. Nima Juarez is growing it in La Coipa, while producers at farms including El Morito and Finca Artemira are also working with the name. That's still a very small footprint compared with more established commercial varieties, but the coffee is spreading.

It got there without a breeding-programme release or a catalogue number. A farmer found a plant that looked different, noticed that it survived a serious disease outbreak, and started growing more of it. Other farmers saw the results and began planting it themselves.

Is Marshell the future?

It's too early to say. It's tempting to describe Marshell as the answer to the old trade-off between disease resistance and cup quality, and the story fits: a resilient plant producing coffee good enough to win one of Peru's biggest specialty coffee competitions. But we don't yet know enough to say so confidently.

We need more genetic work to understand how the different Marshell populations are related, along with proper agronomic trials to establish how they perform across different environments. We also need to see how consistently the best cup profiles can be reproduced as more farms begin growing the coffee.

What we do know is that Marshell is rare, it has an unusual story, and coffees carrying the name have produced very good cups. We still don't know exactly where it sits in the coffee family tree, so until the genetics are settled we'd judge it by what's in the cup.

Quick varietal facts

• Varietal: Marshell (also seen as Marshel or Marshall)
• Species: Coffea arabica, with its precise genetic background still uncertain
• Proposed origin: La Lúcuma farm, San Ignacio province, Cajamarca, Peru
• First identified: 1997, according to producer Grimanés Morales Lizana
• Propagated from: A plant that survived a serious ojo de pollo outbreak in 2011
• Genetic identity: Unconfirmed; traditionally described as a natural Bourbon mutation, with Catimor/Costa Rica 95 ancestry also reported by commercial genetic testing
• Typical growing altitude: Around 1,650 to 1,900m in recent commercial examples, with the original La Lúcuma planting at 1,800m
• Growing region: Mainly Cajamarca, particularly San Ignacio province and the La Coipa district
• Notable recognition: 2019 Cup of Excellence Peru winner, scoring 92.28 points
• Processing: Washed, natural, honey and experimental fermentation methods
• Typical cup profile: Caramel, brown sugar, cola-like spice, stone fruit, red fruit, floral notes and a clean acidity, with considerable variation between lots and processing methods

Further reading

Cup of Excellence: Peru 2019
The official competition results, including the 92.28-point La Lúcuma coffee and the Costa Rica 95 variety designation.

Alliance for Coffee Excellence: Grimanés Morales Lizana
The producer's own account of discovering the unusual coffee plant in 1997 and its survival during the 2011 disease outbreak.

World Coffee Research: Costa Rica 95
Background on the Catimor-group cultivar, including its Caturra × Timor Hybrid 832/1 lineage and current agronomic information.

Ozone Coffee NZ: Marshell, Peru's New Varietal
A deeper look at Marshell's discovery, spread through Cajamarca and the continuing uncertainty around its genetics.

Falcon Coffees: Peru exporter profile
Includes recent sourcing information from northern Peru and a reported genetic analysis identifying Marshell as Costa Rica 95.

Interested in exploring Marshell's possible genetic relatives? Read more about Bourbon, Caturra and other varieties from the Catimor and Bourbon families.