Some varieties arrive with a clear backstory. Documented lineage, known breeders, a tidy timeline from seed to cup. Sidra doesn't. It came out of a research laboratory in Ecuador under circumstances nobody can quite pin down, its genetic identity is still argued over, and the name it carries may not describe a single plant at all. It has also won the World Barista Championship twice, taken a World Brewers Cup title, and become one of the most sought-after varieties in specialty coffee.
The mystery, it turns out, is part of the story.
Where Sidra comes from, probably
The most widely repeated account puts Sidra in a Nestlé coffee breeding facility in the Pichincha province of Ecuador, sometime in the 1990s. The facility was developing hybrids using Ethiopian and Bourbon material, chasing cup quality and yield together. Whether Sidra was a deliberate cross or a seedling that caught someone's eye is unclear, and Perfect Daily Grind's reporting is careful to attribute the Nestlé story to "some people" rather than to state it.
What's better established is who moved it. Don Olger Rogel is credited with introducing both Sidra and Typica Mejorado to the Ecuadorian coffee sector. The facility closed, the varieties were never formally released, and they spread instead through farms and cooperatives, eventually crossing into Colombia.
La Palma y El Tucán in Cundinamarca was among the first farms to grow Sidra commercially, planting around 1,800 trees in 2012 and adding another 4,300 in 2015 as demand built. In Ecuador, José Pepe Jijón at Finca Soledad in Imbabura has become the variety's most vocal advocate. In Colombia, the Lasso family at Finca El Diviso in Pitalito, Huila, took it somewhere else entirely, and that's the farm that put Sidra in front of the world.
The genetics problem
The popular version is that Sidra is a cross between Typica and Red Bourbon. Jooyeon Jeon described it that way on stage at the 2019 World Barista Championship, and plenty of bags still carry it. The story is appealing: Typica's clean sweetness, Bourbon's depth, something better than either.
Genetic testing hasn't backed it up. Producers and roasters who've sent Sidra samples to research institutions have found results matching Ethiopian heirloom varieties, the catch-all term for the wild and genetically unidentified coffees native to Ethiopia. Other tests have come back showing different parentage again. There's no single result everyone can point to.
World Coffee Research, asked to comment by Perfect Daily Grind, gave the answer that probably explains the mess. It said Sidra may not have a clear genetic identity at all, and that what different farms call Sidra could be several distinct varieties sharing one name. WCR notes this happens across the industry, because coffee has no formal seed sector to police it.
That's less unusual than it sounds. Names stick through local convention, word of mouth and commercial habit. "Bourbon" covers enormous genetic diversity. "Heirloom" covers more. Sidra may simply be what a cluster of high-quality, Ethiopian-adjacent plants in Ecuador and Colombia ended up being called.
The cup is more consistent than the paperwork. Intense sweetness, vivid acidity, florals and fruit. That reads closer to an Ethiopian landrace than to anything a Typica and Bourbon cross would usually produce.
Sidra's Journey: From Lab to World Stage
Ecuador
Ecuador
Colombia
Boston
Melbourne
WBC 2022, Melbourne: The Winning Coffee
When Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters won the 2022 World Barista Championship in Melbourne, his team had tasted over 100 coffees before settling on an Anaerobic Natural Sidra from Nestor Lasso's Finca El Diviso in Huila, Colombia. Fermented anaerobically for 80 hours before drying as a natural, the coffee delivered intense cherry, blackberry, and red wine characteristics that judges found unforgettable. It was the second time in three years that a Sidra had stood on the top step of the world's most prestigious coffee competition – and the specialty world took note.
What Sidra tastes like
Sweetness first. Sidra is regularly described as carrying more of it than almost any other arabica, and it sits under everything else the variety does.
Beyond that, ask three people and you'll get three answers. Cole Torode, who competed with Sidra twice, describes ripe stone fruit, nectarine, apricot and peach, with orange and orange blossom citrus and white grape and wine-like notes. Pepe Jijón has cupped hundreds of Sidra samples at Finca Soledad and looks for something else entirely: botanical and mint. On a table of twenty coffees, he says, that's how his team picks the Sidra out.
Washed or lightly processed, the variety leans floral and tea-like. Jasmine, white grape, orange blossom, a silky body and a delicate citrus lift. Push it toward naturals and the fruit thickens. Peach, apricot, nectarine, red berry, riper and more confectionery, the florals giving way to stone fruit compote. Push further, into extended anaerobic fermentation, and you get cherry, blackberry and red wine, with an acidity that carries real tannin structure.
Arturo Arevalo, founder of Selvadentro and formerly of La Palma y El Tucán, argues the variety holds its shape regardless. In his experience Sidra reads sweet whatever you do to it, with honey, malt and red apple, mild citrus acidity and a velvety mouthfeel. Both things seem to be true. The register shifts a long way with processing, the sweetness doesn't.
The processing factor
Sidra's rise lines up almost exactly with the boom in experimental processing, and that isn't a coincidence. Where some varieties get buried under aggressive fermentation, Sidra amplifies. Its sweetness and fruit give post-harvest work a platform to build on rather than something to shout over.
Washed Sidra is the cleanest read on the variety. Fruit and mucilage come off before fermentation, the florals stay distinct, the acidity stays structured. It's the format that shows terroir differences between Ecuadorian and Colombian lots most clearly. Naturals dry with the cherry intact, and the sugars work into the bean over weeks. The body thickens, the finish lengthens, the peach and nectarine come forward.
Anaerobic naturals go furthest. Cherries are sealed in oxygen-free vessels for an extended fermentation before drying whole, which is how Néstor Lasso built the coffee that won the 2022 championship. Eighty hours anaerobic, then dried as a natural. In the wrong hands, or with a variety that can't carry the load, this approach tips into funk and imbalance. Sidra carries it. Extended anaerobic fermentation has become the format most associated with the variety at the top end.
La Palma y El Tucán use their own approach, which they call the bio innovation method, adding microorganisms native to the farm to the cherry. Those microbes break down sugars and produce more organic acids, which tends to push tropical fruit notes and a heavier mouthfeel. Honey processing sits in the middle, enough fruit to hold attention, enough precision to stay elegant.
Why it's still rare
Two World Barista Championship titles, a World Brewers Cup, and demand from roasters across three continents. So why isn't Sidra everywhere?
Because it's a difficult plant. Pepe Jijón puts it plainly: Sidra needs shade, and some say it originally grew in forest. It needs an ecosystem, and it can't be planted in full sun the way commercially minded varieties can. It grows between roughly 1,650 and 1,800 metres, and the best cups come from above 1,700. Jijón rates it as high-yielding and resistant to a number of pests and diseases, with one exception: coffee leaf rust, which it has no answer to. The team at La Palma y El Tucán add two more, describing it as highly susceptible to Ceratocystis fimbriata and to coffee berry disease.
So the farms doing the best work with Sidra are small, careful operations. The Lasso family at El Diviso, Jijón at Finca Soledad, the team at La Palma y El Tucán. At commercial scale the sums rarely work, because the yield only justifies the shade management, altitude and disease pressure if there's a buyer paying for the cup at the other end.
Those buyers have been arriving. Demand for El Diviso lots surged after 2022, which is the pattern Gesha followed after the 2004 Best of Panama. Jijón thinks the comparison holds, and points out it took Panamanian Gesha around thirty years to get where it is.
Ecuador and Colombia, two different conversations
Like Gesha, Sidra shifts meaningfully between origins.
Ecuadorian Sidra tends to be the more restrained expression. High altitudes in Loja and Imbabura, a cool climate and volcanic soil produce a cup that leans floral and precise. There's delicacy here, and less intensity than the Colombian lots. Farms like Finca Soledad, working at extreme altitude with biodynamic practices, make coffee that rewards careful brewing. For a lot of coffee professionals this is Sidra at its most expressive of place.
Colombian Sidra is where the experimentation happens. The country's post-harvest culture pushes fermentation parameters and chases scores, and Huila and Valle del Cauca have become the centres of it. El Diviso and Café Granja La Esperanza produce naturals and anaerobics that land nothing like their Ecuadorian counterparts. More fruit weight, more fermentation complexity, more drama.
Neither is better. They're different conversations with the same variety.
The competition trail
Sidra's reputation was built on the competition stage, and the run starts earlier than most accounts have it.
Cole Torode of Rosso Coffee Roasters took a natural Sidra from La Palma y El Tucán to the 2018 World Barista Championship in Amsterdam and placed fifth. He brought the same lot back to Boston in 2019, built a routine around the idea of vintage, and placed third. In that same final, Jooyeon Jeon of South Korea won the title using an anaerobic fermentation Sidra, also from La Palma y El Tucán. Two of the top three, one variety, one farm.
In 2022 in Melbourne, Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters won with an anaerobic natural Sidra produced by Néstor Lasso at Finca El Diviso in Pitalito, Huila. His team, which included Jack Simpson as coach, cupped around a hundred coffees before settling on it. Lasso had fermented the lot anaerobically for eighty hours before drying it as a natural, and Douglas called it sweet, articulate and unique. His espresso course landed as blackberry, cherry and red wine, with a long red wine tannin finish.
The following year Sidra took a second world title in a different discipline. At the 2023 World Brewers Cup in Athens, Carlos Medina of Chile became the first Latin American to win the competition, using a natural Sidra from Finca Potosí at Café Granja La Esperanza in Valle del Cauca. His reasoning is worth quoting: he picked Sidra because he didn't want to compete head-on against the Geshas. The lot was fermented for 48 hours in tank, dried in silos for another 48, then finished in the sun for eight days.
Sidra kept turning up after that, including on the 2024 World Barista Championship stage in Busan in both washed and natural forms. El Diviso, meanwhile, became a competition address in its own right. Jack Simpson used the farm's Ombligon for his espresso course in 2023, and went on to win the 2025 championship with an anaerobic natural Papayo from a different Huila farm.
The pattern is the one Gesha traced from 2004 and Sudan Rume traced from 2015. A variety earns legitimacy on stage, roasters follow, prices rise, more producers plant it. For Sidra it's clearly underway.
Quick varietal facts
Varietal: Sidra, also Sydra or Bourbon Sidra
Type: Genetic identity unresolved. Some tests match Ethiopian heirloom varieties, others show different parentage
Origin: Pichincha, Ecuador, reportedly a Nestlé breeding facility in the 1990s
Introduced by: Don Olger Rogel, credited with bringing both Sidra and Typica Mejorado to Ecuador's coffee sector
Growing altitude: Roughly 1,650 to 1,800m, with the best cup quality above 1,700m
Growth habit: Tall, up to four metres, with thick trunks, dark green leaves and elongated five-petal flowers. Requires shade
Cherry: Red, larger and rounder than typical arabica, with pointed ends, growing densely clustered along the branches
Bean shape: Longer and thinner than most arabica, similar to Gesha
Yield: High per tree, but only under the right conditions
Disease profile: No resistance to coffee leaf rust. La Palma y El Tucán also report high susceptibility to Ceratocystis fimbriata and coffee berry disease. Pepe Jijón reports resistance to several other pests and diseases
Key growing regions: Ecuador (Pichincha, Imbabura, Loja) and Colombia (Cundinamarca, Huila, Valle del Cauca)
Typical cup profile: High sweetness, vivid acidity, floral and fruit-forward. Jasmine and stone fruit when washed, cherry, blackberry and red wine when anaerobic natural. Botanical and mint notes are a recognition marker for some cuppers
Notable competition use: 2019 World Barista Championship (Jooyeon Jeon, first, and Cole Torode, third), 2022 World Barista Championship (Anthony Douglas, first), 2023 World Brewers Cup (Carlos Medina, first)
Further reading
Perfect Daily Grind, What is Sidra coffee?
The best single source on Sidra, with José Pepe Jijón, Cole Torode and Arturo Arevalo on the cup, and World Coffee Research on why the variety may not have one genetic identity. Most of the specifics above come from here.
Sweet Maria's Coffee Library, Sidra
A concise entry on the origin story, physical characteristics and the ongoing uncertainty around classification.
Perfect Daily Grind, Ultra-rare coffee varieties: how they rise and fall
How exclusive varieties move through the market, using Sidra, Gesha and Pink Bourbon as cases. Useful for understanding where Sidra sits now.
Perfect Daily Grind, What is Typica Mejorado?
Sidra's sister variety, also credited to Don Olger Rogel, and increasingly seen on competition stages. Read the two together for a fuller picture of what's happening in Ecuador.
Want more rare arabica? Read our guides to Geisha, Bourbon, Typica and Papayo.