Let’s define some words:

Scientists will fight for days over these definitions—this is our best attempt to keep basic coffee terms straight, without writing a dictionary. You can find more in-depth resources at the bottom of the page and dive into the rabbit hole yourself!

Variety:

This is the best term we have to describe the massive millenia-long sprawl of coffee’s iterations. It covers all the subspecies of the coffee plant.

Varietal:

This is often correctly used as an adjective to describe a coffee product, for example, “this single-varietal Kenya is delicious!”