Coffea arabica

Coffea arabica, also known as Arabica coffee, is a type of flowering plant in the coffee and madder family Rubiaceae. It is thought to be the very first type of coffee that people grew for farming. Today, it is the most common type of coffee used around the world.

There is another type of coffee called robusta, which comes from a different plant called C. canephora. Robusta coffee is a bit less tasty and more bitter than Arabica coffee. It also has more of the wake-up ingredient called caffeinated .

Description

Wild coffee plants can grow very tall, up to about 30 to 39 feet. Their leaves are dark green and shiny. They bloom with small white flowers. After the flowers, the plant makes red or purple fruits called "cherries." Inside these cherries are the seeds we call coffee beans.

Taxonomy

The name Coffea arabica was first given by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Before that, other scientists had written about this plant, but they used different names.

Coffea arabica has a special cell structure with four copies of its chromosomes. This is different from most plants that have only two copies. This special structure happened when two different coffee plants joined together a very long time ago, in East Africa.

Distribution and habitat

Coffea arabica grows naturally in the highlands of Ethiopia. It is now grown in many countries between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer.

The plant likes places with moderate temperatures, rain, and partial shade. It is often found growing under larger trees.

This coffee plant was first taken to Hawaii in 1813 and became an important crop there. In some places, coffee plants have spread beyond farms and can sometimes grow where they are not wanted. In Australia, coffee growing began in the 1980s and 1990s, and there are efforts to manage its spread to protect natural areas.

History

Main article: History of coffee

The first written record of coffee made from roasted coffee beans comes from Arab scholars. They wrote that coffee helped them work longer. This idea from Yemen to make a drink from roasted beans spread first to the Hijazis, Egyptians, and Turks, and later to the rest of the world. Coffee plants may have come from Yemen. Arabica coffee production in Indonesia began in 1699 as Yemen’s trade spread. Indonesian coffees, like Sumatran and Java, are known for their strong flavor and low acidity. These mix well with coffees from Central America and East Africa.

Cultivation and use

Coffea arabica makes up most of the coffee grown around the world. It takes about seven years for coffee plants to fully grow. They grow best with regular rain and warm temperatures between 15 and 24 °C (59 and 75 °F). These plants are often grown in places with light shade and between 1,200 and 1,500 metres high, though some are grown at lower or higher heights.

These plants produce small white flowers that smell sweet, like jasmine. After the flowers, berries grow and turn red or yellow when ready to pick. The beans inside these berries are what we use to make coffee. Each berry usually has two beans, but sometimes there is only one. Coffee from Coffea arabica is known for being of high quality, with famous types coming from places like Jamaican Blue Mountain, Colombian Supremo, Tarrazú, Costa Rica, Guatemalan Antigua, and Ethiopian Sidamo.

Some coffee brands label their product as “100% Arabica” to show its quality.

Strains

One type of the Arabica coffee plant, named AC1, AC2, and AC3 after the scientist Alcides Carvalho, has very little caffeine. Normal Arabica coffee beans have about 12 mg of caffeine in each gram, but these special beans have only about 0.76 mg of caffeine. The taste of the coffee from these beans is still good.

Threats

Although there are many wild coffee plants, C. arabica is considered at risk because of several challenges it faces. It needs forests to survive, but many forests in its home country have been cut down. This makes the plant very vulnerable.

Climate change is another big challenge. Because this coffee plant is sensitive to heat, changes in temperature could reduce the number of plants that can grow in the wild. Pests and diseases also cause losses in coffee production each year. Protecting wild coffee plants in their natural homes is important to keep the plant’s diversity and ensure it can continue to grow for future generations.