Chiroso.

The evidence

Chiroso rests on firmer ground than most exotic Colombian names. Montagnon and colleagues published in Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution in 2021, reading microsatellite markers across 137 Arabica samples spanning Ethiopian accessions, worldwide cultivars and Yemeni germplasm. Chiroso fell inside an exclusively Ethiopian cluster, absent from the worldwide cultivated varieties: a landrace that left Ethiopia and kept going. The authors included it without knowing its Urrao name.

RD2 Vision reproduced the finding in 2023 on material from Carmen Montoya's farm. Two independent reads, one of them peer-reviewed, which is more than can be said for most of the varieties sold at this end of the market.

How it reached Antioquia is genuinely unknown. Pedro Miguel Echavarria of PergaminoParchmentThe papery husk around each green bean. Coffee is dried and stored in parchment, and hulled out of it shortly before export.More → puts it flatly: there has been no reliable research that explains it. The house would rather leave that blank than fill it with a story.

A group, not a variety

Work published in 2024 assembled complete chloroplast genomes for three distinct Urrao types: Caturra Chiroso, Bourbon Chiroso and Chiroso proper. Against twenty-six other Arabica varieties the group formed its own branch, with affinity to eastern Ethiopian landrace material.

That result carries a caveat worth stating. Chloroplast DNA passes down the maternal line only, so it establishes a shared mother, not full parentage. Separately, Lucas Cuadros has identified two Chiroso phenotypes in Urrao differing in cherry colour and leaf shape. Chiroso on a bag may be any of several related types, and the house says so rather than implying a single clean line.

The name itself is rural Colombian slang for something elongated, after the bean and the cherry. Growers called it Caturra Chiroso on looks alone. The resemblance is real and the parentage is not.

What it does

In 2020 Felipe Henao Triana took first place in the Colombian Cup of Excellence with a washed Chiroso from Finca Los Tres Mosqueteros in Urrao, scoring 90.03 and collecting the only Presidential Award that year. Second, third and fourth were Gesha. Carmen Cecilia Montoya had already won the national competition with an Urrao Chiroso in 2014, which is the result that first drew attention to the valley.

It outperforms Castillo and Colombia at higher altitude and in cooler sites, which is the practical argument for planting it. Yield reports conflict: strong for a landrace type, below the modern bred varieties. Rust-susceptibleLeaf rustHemileia vastatrix, la roya: the fungus that strips arabica of its leaves. Colombia's breeding programme exists to resist it, which is why Castillo and Tabi carry Timor Hybrid lines.More →. Volumes stay small.