We have roasted three lots of Malaysian Liberica. Two came from one small estate at Long Banga, in Sarawak: Ragi, which has sold through, and Long Banga Honey, which we roast now. Long Banga Honey is Libex, a hybrid of Liberica and excelsa. The third was a washed lot from Batu Kurau, near Taiping in Perak, and it sold through too.
The longer argument for the species is on our Liberica page.
Why Liberica grows in Malaysia.
Liberica came to Malaysia because of a fungus. In 1869, coffee leaf rust was found on plantations in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, which was then one of the world's largest coffee producers. By 1890, nine-tenths of the island's coffee land had been abandoned, and Ceylon turned to tea. The rust kept spreading, and by 1920 it had reached most of the coffee-growing countries in Asia.
Growers went looking for a tree that could stand it. Liberica, a West African species named after Liberia, was thought to resist the rust, and from the 1870s it was planted widely in Asia. Planters from Ceylon came to the Malay Peninsula looking for land the fungus hadn't reached, and in 1879 one of them opened a Liberica estate at Sungei Ujong, in what is now Negeri Sembilan.
Liberica held up better than arabica, but it wasn't immune. Malaya's coffee estates, many of them planted with Liberica, had a minor boom around 1890. By the mid-1890s the rust was damaging the Peninsula's estates. Hawkmoth caterpillars and a slump in coffee prices did the rest, and by about 1905 rubber had replaced coffee as the Peninsula's plantation crop.
The tree lost ground elsewhere too. In Java, robusta arrived around 1900 and over the following decades replaced Liberica on most estates. Latin America stayed free of the rust until 1970, and it came to grow most of the world's arabica.
Malaysia kept growing Liberica, and people across Southeast Asia kept drinking it. In 2024 it still covered 87 per cent of the country's 2,924 hectares of coffee, by the agriculture minister's figures. When specialty coffee took shape from the 1970s, though, its idea of a fine cup was built on arabica, and Liberica hardly figured.
A Kew-led study published in 2025 puts Liberica and its close relative excelsa together at probably less than 1,000 tonnes, about 0.01 per cent of world coffee exports. The 1 to 2 per cent still quoted online dates from the late nineteenth century, when Liberica stood second to arabica in the coffee trade.
The plant, briefly.
There are about 130 known species of coffee, and two of them, arabica and robusta, carry almost the whole trade. Liberica is farmed mostly between 10 and 500 metres, in hot, wet country where arabica struggles. It's a big plant. Its leaves average about 23 centimetres long, and a tree left unpruned can pass ten metres.
In the one side-by-side analysis we know of, made on Malaysian samples and published in 2001, Liberica carried a little less caffeine than arabica: 1.23 g per 100 g, against 1.61 g. The full figures are in our piece on caffeine.
Long Banga, in Sarawak's upper Baram.
Long Banga is a village in the upper Baram, part of Sarawak's Miri Division in Malaysian Borneo. It sits close to the border with Indonesian Kalimantan and takes its name from a small river beside it. The airstrip is at 431 metres. From Miri, on the coast, the flight takes about 55 minutes in a Twin Otter, a propeller plane that the short runway limits to nine passengers. By four-wheel drive on logging tracks, the trip takes up to ten hours.
The estate we buy from is a few hectares, 500 metres up, which is high for Liberica. It grows its coffee without synthetic inputs and has no organic certificate, because the annual audit costs more than a farm this size can justify. Long Banga Honey hasn't been screened by a laboratory either, and no screen is scheduled.
Long Banga Honey is Libex.
Libex is a hybrid of two coffee species, Liberica and its close relative excelsa. It arose in cultivation. In May 2026 a Kew-led team that included Sarawak researchers proposed the name Coffea × libex in the journal Scientific Reports. In Sarawak, 40 of the 45 'Liberica' trees they sampled carried some excelsa DNA, and 28 carried more than 12 per cent.
In the wild, the parents never meet: their natural ranges in Africa are at least 1,000 kilometres apart. How the hybrid came to be in Sarawak hasn't been established. The study also found hybrids among samples from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Uganda and Costa Rica.
The estate has confirmed to us that Long Banga Honey is Libex. Part of the study's fieldwork was on farms in the upper Baram, the valley Long Banga sits in, but the paper doesn't name Long Banga, and we don't claim the estate's trees were among those sampled.
The name is new, and most of this coffee is still sold as Liberica. Ours keeps Liberica in its name: Sarawak Liberica Long Banga Honey.
The study also measured the beans. On average, Libex beans sit between their parents in size, and their parchment, the hard shell around the bean that is milled off before roasting, is thinner than Liberica's. In Sarawak's hybrids, which carry less excelsa than most, the difference was small. The authors note that traits like these affect yield and processing.
What it means for farming is still open. The authors think the hybrid may suit some climates where its parents struggle, and that improved hybrid trees could reach farms fairly quickly. They call for field trials across several climates to find out where it does well.
Two lots from one estate.
Ragi was our earlier lot from Long Banga. Its cherries were picked ripe and sealed in oxygen-free containers for 36 hours. Then they were pulped and dried without washing off the mucilage, the sticky layer of fruit that clings to the bean. The method is called anaerobic honey.
Its cup opened with manuka honey. Then came a persistent, slightly strange florality that never resolved into anything easy to name, over a heavy body. It changed as it cooled, and we gave it ten minutes after pouring before tasting it seriously.
Long Banga Honey is the lot we roast now, from the same estate and a single harvest. It's honey-processed without the sealed fermentation: the skin comes off, and the bean dries in the sun with the mucilage still on. We roast it medium.
The cup is gentler than Ragi's was. Tangerine at the front, bright without being sharp. Then brown sugar and milk chocolate, with coconut underneath, in a wide, low register arabica doesn't reach. Give it two mornings. It makes sense by the second.
The two lots came from one estate, and their cups were very different. Processing is the likeliest reason. The trees may have differed too: we don't know whether Ragi's were Libex. The Long Banga lot we roast today →
Taiping, the washed expression from Perak.
Across the South China Sea, in northern Perak, our washed lot came from a smallholding at Batu Kurau, a town about 20 kilometres from Taiping. It came to us as Liberica, processed like a typical washed arabica: pulped, fermented under water, washed clean and sun-dried on raised beds. We roasted it for a season.
The cup was a different proposition from the Sarawak lots. Chocolate on the nose, the kind of chocolate that still smelt of cocoa, not sugar. Dried fruit on the mid-palate. Figs, possibly. Underneath, a faint clove that never turned spicy.
We found the washed lot the easiest way into the species. It was closer to what the palate expects from coffee. It was also our most useful comparison: beside the Ragi, it could hardly have tasted more different.
Processing was one difference among several. In the 2026 study, six of eight samples from Peninsular Malaysia were pure Liberica, against five of 45 from Sarawak. We don't know which kind the Batu Kurau trees were.
How to brew Liberica to its advantage.
Liberica brews heavier than arabica, and recipes built for a washed Ethiopian tend to pull too much out of it.
A starting point that has landed consistently across our Liberica lots: a 1:15 brew ratio, instead of the 1:16 you might use for an Ethiopian. Water at 92 °C, just off the boil. A grind one step coarser than your filter default, and a slow drawdown. Around four minutes of total contact time on a V60, or about three minutes on an AeroPress with a one-minute steep before pressing.
If it comes out muddy, it has over-extracted: coarsen the grind and pull the temperature back. If it tastes thin and watery, it has under-extracted, so grind finer and steep a little longer.
Judge it on its own terms rather than against a washed Ethiopian. Its weight and sweetness are the point, and it takes milk well, which most single origins don't.
Why it's worth drinking.
Specialty coffee has spent decades prizing clarity and brightness, and it has produced some extraordinary cups doing it. A heavier cup is a different pleasure. It coats the mouth, and it still tastes good half an hour after you pour it.
There's a practical reason too. In December 2022, Kew researchers and colleagues argued that Liberica, which then included excelsa, could re-emerge as a major crop in a warming world. The 2025 study suggested the two may suit places where arabica and robusta are becoming harder to grow. Whether Libex widens that range is for field trials to show. None of it is certain, and a crop this size can't replace anything at scale. It's still a good reason to grow it well, and to drink it.
If you're new to Liberica, Long Banga Honey is a gentle place to start. Sarawak Liberica Long Banga Honey →
The short answers.
What is Libex?
A hybrid of two coffee species, Liberica and its close relative excelsa. It arose in cultivation, and in May 2026 a Kew-led team that included Sarawak researchers proposed the name
Coffea ×
libex for it in Scientific Reports. In Sarawak, 40 of the 45 'Liberica' trees they sampled carried some excelsa DNA. Most of this coffee is still sold as Liberica.
Where is Long Banga?
A village in the upper Baram, part of Sarawak's Miri Division in Malaysian Borneo, close to the border with Indonesian Kalimantan. The airstrip is at 431 metres. From Miri, the flight takes about 55 minutes in a Twin Otter, and the trip by four-wheel drive on logging tracks takes up to ten hours. Our Long Banga Honey comes from an estate of a few hectares there, 500 metres up.
Why does Liberica grow in Malaysia?
Planters spread it across Asia from the 1870s, thinking it would resist the coffee leaf rust that was ruining Ceylon's coffee. It held up better than arabica but was not immune, and by about 1905 rubber had replaced coffee on the Peninsula's estates. Malaysia kept growing it anyway: in 2024 Liberica covered 87 per cent of the country's coffee land, by the agriculture minister's figures.
How did Ragi and Long Banga Honey differ?
Both came from the same estate at Long Banga. Ragi, our earlier lot, was sealed without oxygen for 36 hours before it was pulped and dried as a honey, and it tasted of manuka honey and an odd, persistent florality. Long Banga Honey skips the sealed fermentation, and its cup is gentler: tangerine, brown sugar and milk chocolate, with coconut underneath.
What was the Taiping lot like?
A washed lot that came to us as Liberica, from a smallholding at Batu Kurau, about 20 kilometres from Taiping in Perak. It was pulped, fermented under water, washed and dried on raised beds, and it tasted of cocoa, dried fruit and a faint clove. We found it the easiest way into the species. We roasted it for a season, and it has sold through.
