The Cultivation of Coffee

The Coffea plant is a native of Africa and southern Asia. It belongs to the Rubiaceae family of flowering plants and is an evergreen shrub of up to five meters tall. The leaves are dark green and glossy and it produces clusters of fragrant, white flowers that all bloom at the same time. The subsequent fruit berry green when immature, but ripens. within seven to nine months, to yellow, then crimson, becoming black when it is dried.

Coffee is usually propagated by seed; twenty seeds are planted together in the same hole with about half successfully germinating.

The two main cultivated species of the coffee plant are Coffea canephora and Coffea Arabica. Arabica coffee (from C. arabica) is considered more suitable for drinking than Robusta coffee (from C. canephora); robusta tends to be bitter and have less flavour than arabica. About 75% of coffee cultivated worldwide is C. arabica. However, C. canephora is less susceptible to disease and can be cultivated in environments where C. arabica will not thrive. Robusta coffee also contains about 40–50 percent more caffeine than arabica. For this reason, it is used as an inexpensive substitute for Arabica in many commercial coffee blends. Good quality Robustas are used in some espresso blends to provide a better foam head and to lower the ingredient cost. Other cultivated species include Coffea liberica and Coffea esliaca, believed to be indigenous to Liberia and southern Sudan, respectively.

Most arabica coffee beans originate from either Latin America, eastern Africa, Arabia, or Asia. Robusta coffee beans are grown in western and central Africa, throughout southeast Asia, and to some extent in Brazil. Beans from different countries or regions usually have distinctive characteristics such as flavour, aroma, body, and acidity. These taste characteristics are dependent not only on the coffee's growing region, but also on genetic subspecies (varietals) and processing. Varietals are generally known by the region in which they are grown, such as Colombian, Java, or Kona.