This article is about the species of coffee plant. For the Japanese specialty coffee house chain, see % Arabica. For methods of preparation of a drink, see Arabic coffee.
Coffea arabica (/əˈræbɪkə/), also known as the Arabica coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the coffee and madder family Rubiaceae. It is believed to be the first species of coffee to have been cultivated and is the dominant cultivar, representing about 60% of global production.[2] Coffee produced from the less acidic, more bitter, and more highly caffeinated robusta bean (C. canephora) makes up most of the remaining coffee production. The natural populations of Coffea arabica are restricted to the forests of South Ethiopia and Yemen.[3][4]
Coffea arabica is one of the polyploid species of the genus Coffea, as it carries 4 copies of the 11 chromosomes (44 total) instead of the 2 copies of diploid species. Specifically, Coffea arabica is itself the result of a hybridization between the diploids Coffea canephora and Coffea eugenioides,[6] thus making it an allotetraploid, with two copies of two different genomes. This hybridization event at the origin of Coffea arabica is estimated between 1.08 million and 543,000 years ago and is linked to changing environmental conditions in East Africa.[7][8]
Description
Wild plants grow between 9 and 12m (30 and 39ft) tall, and have an open branching system; the leaves are opposite, simple elliptic-ovate to oblong, 6–12cm (2.5–4.5in) long and 4–8cm (1.5–3in) broad, glossy dark green. The flowers are white, 10–15mm in diameter, and grow in axillary clusters. The seeds are contained in a drupe (commonly called a "cherry") 10–15mm in diameter, maturing bright red to purple and typically containing two seeds, often called coffee beans.
The coffee tree was first brought to Hawaii in 1813, and it began to be extensively grown by about 1850.[14] It was formerly more widely grown, especially in Kona,[14] and it persists after cultivation in many areas. In some valleys, it is a highly invasive weed.[15] In the Udawattakele and Gannoruwa Forest Reserves near Kandy, Sri Lanka, coffee shrubs are also a problematic invasive species.[16]
Coffee has been produced in Queensland and New South Wales of Australia, starting in the 1980s and 1990s.[17] The Wet Tropics Management Authority has classified Coffea arabica as an environmental weed for southeast Queensland due to its invasiveness in non-agricultural areas.[18][19]
The first written record of coffee made from roasted coffee beans (botanical seeds) comes from Arab scholars, who wrote that it was useful in prolonging their working hours. The Arab innovation in Yemen of making a brew from roasted beans spread first among the Egyptians and Turks, and later on found its way around the world. Other scholars believe that the coffee plant was introduced from Yemen, based on a Yemeni tradition that slips of both coffee and qat were planted at Udein ('the two twigs') in Yemen in pre-Islamic times.[20]Arabica coffee production in Indonesia began in 1699 through the spread of Yemen's trade. Indonesian coffees, such as Sumatran and Java, are known for their heavy body and low acidity. This makes them ideal for blending with the higher acidity coffees from Central America and East Africa.[9]
Cultivation and use
Botanical drawing of Coffea arabica, around 1860Botanical drawing of C. arabica, dating from around 1880
Coffea arabica accounts for 60% of the world's coffee production.[2][21]
C. arabica takes approximately seven years to mature fully, and it does best with 1.0–1.5 metres (39–59in) of rain, evenly distributed throughout the year.[citation needed] It is usually cultivated at an altitude between 1,300 and 1,500m (4,300 and 4,900ft),[citation needed] but there are plantations that grow it as low as sea level and as high as 2,800m (9,200ft).[22]
The plant can tolerate low temperatures, but not frost, and it does best with an average temperature between 15 and 24°C (59 and 75°F).[23] Commercial cultivars mostly only grow to about 5m, and are frequently trimmed as low as 2m to facilitate harvesting. Unlike Coffea canephora, C. arabica prefers to be grown in light shade.[24]
Two to four years after planting, C. arabica produces small, white, highly fragrant flowers. The sweet fragrance resembles the sweet smell of jasmine flowers. Flowers opening on sunny days result in the greatest number of berries. This can be problematic and deleterious, however, as coffee plants tend to produce too many berries; this can lead to an inferior harvest and even damage yield in the following years, as the plant will favor the ripening of berries to the detriment of its own health.
On well-kept plantations, overflowering is prevented by pruning the tree. The flowers only last a few days, leaving behind only the thick, dark-green leaves. The berries then begin to appear. These are as dark green as the foliage until they begin to ripen, at first to yellow and then light red and finally darkening to a glossy, deep red. At this point, they are called "cherries", which fruit they then resemble, and are ready for picking.
The berries are oblong and about 1cm long. Inferior coffee results from picking them too early or too late, so many are picked by hand to be able to better select them, as they do not all ripen at the same time. They are sometimes shaken off the tree onto mats, which means ripe and unripe berries are collected together.
The trees are difficult to cultivate and each tree can produce from 0.5 to 5.0 kilograms (1.1 to 11.0lb) of dried beans, depending on the tree's individual character and the climate that season. The most valuable part of this cash crop is the beans inside. Each berry holds two locules containing the beans. The coffee beans are actually two seeds within the fruit; sometimes, a third seed or one seed, a peaberry, grows in the fruit at the tips of the branches. These seeds are covered in two membranes; the outer one is called the "parchment coat" and the inner one is called the "silver skin".
On Java, trees are planted at all times of the year and are harvested year-round. In parts of Brazil, however, the trees have a season and are harvested only in winter. The plants are vulnerable to damage in such poor growing conditions as cold or low pH soil, and they are also more vulnerable to pests than the C. robusta plant.[25]
It is expected that a medium-term depletion of indigenous populations of C. arabica may occur, due to projected global warming, based on IPCC modelling.[26] Climate change—rising temperatures, longer droughts, and excessive rainfall—appears to threaten the sustainability of arabica coffee production, leading to attempts to breed new cultivars for the changing conditions.[27]
Blends consisting only of Arabica are often labelled "100% Arabica" as a sign of quality. In 2023, several large coffee roasters dropped the "100% Arabica" declaration previously residing on some of their packages and started to blend less expensive Robusta coffee into the mix. To avoid making larger changes to the visual design of the package the Arabica label was replaced by other labeling, keeping the previous ornamental design, thereby presenting a case of shrinkflation. In some case, the coffee is still advertised as "100% Arabica" in flyers in 2024, but is no longer declared so on the actual package.
A Coffea arabica plantation in São João do Manhuaçu, Minas Gerais, Brazil
One strain of Coffea arabica (called AC1, AC2 and AC3 in honour of the geneticist Alcides Carvalho) naturally contains very little caffeine. While beans of normal C. arabica plants contain 12mg of caffeine per gram of dry mass, these mutants contain only 0.76mg of caffeine per gram, with similar expected cup quality.[31]
Threats
Although it has a huge wild population of 13.5 to 19.5 billion individuals throughout its native range, C. arabica is still considered endangered on the IUCN Red List due to numerous threats it faces. Due to being an understory plant, it requires standing forest, making it highly susceptible to the historically significant deforestation levels in Ethiopia; prior to major deforestation, forest cover was thought to be between 25–31% of Ethiopia's total land surface, but has dropped to just 4%, and deforestation still continues. In addition, climate change may have a major effect on growing areas for wild C. arabica in Ethiopia due to its high-temperature sensitivity, and estimates indicate that population could reduce by 50–80% with a 40–50% reduction in area of occupancy by 2088; climate change can also impact reproductive success. In addition, the main pest of coffee, the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) may benefit from climate change and colonize higher altitudes that were formerly too cold for it, which can also impact coffee populations.[12]
The conservation of the genetic variation of C. arabica relies on conserving healthy populations of wild coffee in the Afromontanerainforests of Yemen. Genetic research has shown coffee cultivation is threatening the genetic integrity of wild coffee because it exposes wild genotypes to cultivars.[32] Nearly all of the coffee that has been cultivated over the past few centuries originated from just a handful of wild plants from Yemen, and the coffee growing on plantations around the world contains less than 1% of the diversity in the wilds of Yemen alone.[33]
Climate change also serves as a threat to cultivated C. arabica due to their temperature sensitivity, and some studies estimate that by 2050, over half of the land used for cultivating coffee could be unproductive. The more heat-tolerant Coffea stenophylla may replace C. arabica as the dominant coffee species in cultivation in order to guard against this.[34]
Coffea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. Coffea species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia. The seeds of some species, called coffee beans, are used to flavor various beverages and products. The fruits, like the seeds, contain a large amount of caffeine, and have a distinct sweet taste.
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It has the highest sales in the world market for hot drinks.
Decaffeination is the removal of caffeine from coffee beans, cocoa, tea leaves, and other caffeine-containing materials. Decaffeinated products are commonly termed by the abbreviation decaf. Decaffeinated drinks contain typically 1–2% of the original caffeine content, but sometimes as much as 20%.
Coffee production is the industrial process of converting the raw fruit of the coffee plant into the finished coffee. The coffee cherry has the fruit or pulp removed leaving the seed or bean which is then dried. While all green coffee is processed, the method that is used varies and can have a significant effect on the flavor of roasted and brewed coffee. Coffee production is a major source of income for 12.5 million households, most in developing countries.
A coffee bean is a seed from the Coffea plant and the source for coffee. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit. This fruit is often referred to as a coffee cherry, and like the cherry, it is a fruit with a pit. Even though the coffee beans are not technically beans, they are referred to as such because of their resemblance to true beans. The fruits most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together. A small percentage of cherries contain a single seed, called a "peaberry". Peaberries make up only around 10% to 15% of all coffee beans. It is a fairly common belief that they have more flavour than normal coffee beans. Like Brazil nuts and white rice, coffee beans consist mostly of endosperm.
Coffea canephora is a species of coffee plant that has its origins in central and western sub-Saharan Africa. It is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. Though widely known as Coffea robusta, the plant is scientifically identified as Coffea canephora, which has two main varieties, robusta and nganda.
The history of coffee dates back centuries, first from its origin in Ethiopia and later in Yemen. It was already known in Mecca in the 15th century. Also, in the 15th century, Sufi monasteries in Yemen employed coffee as an aid to concentration during prayers. Coffee later spread to the Levant in the early 16th century; it caused some controversy on whether it was halal in Ottoman and Mamluk society. Coffee arrived in Italy the second half of the 16th century through commercial Mediterranean trade routes, while Central and Eastern Europeans learned of coffee from the Ottomans. By the mid 17th century, it had reached India and the East Indies.
Colletotrichum kahawae is a fungal plant pathogen that causes coffee berry disease (CBD) on Coffea arabica crops. The pathogen is an ascomycete that reproduces asexually. The asexual spores (conidia) are stored within acervuli. This disease is considered to be one of the major factors hampering C.arabica production in the African continent, which represents the current geographic range of the fungus. Coffee berry disease causes dark necrosis in spots and causes the green berries of the coffee to drop prematurely. High humidity, relatively warm temperatures, and high altitude are ideal for disease formation. Given the severity of the disease and the lack of effective control measures, there is great concern that the fungus may spread to other coffee producing continents, such as South America, which could have catastrophic consequences.
Coffea liberica, commonly known as the Liberian coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae from which coffee is produced. It is native to western and central Africa, and has become naturalised in areas including Colombia, Venezuela, the Philippines, Borneo and Java.
Coffea charrieriana, also known as Charrier coffee, is a species of flowering plant from the Coffea genus. It is a caffeine-free coffee plant endemic to Cameroon in Central Africa. It is the first recorded caffeine-free Coffea in Central Africa, and the second to be recorded in Africa. The first caffeine-free species was previously discovered in Kenya, named C. pseudozanguebariae. The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and a committee of taxonomists and scientists voted C. charrieriana as one of the top 10 species described in 2008.
Low caffeine coffee is a term that is used by coffee producers to describe coffee that has not been subjected to a process of decaffeination, but is substantially lower in caffeine than average coffee. Samples of coffee vary widely in caffeine levels due to many factors, some well documented and some not fully understood, such as the action of soil, water levels and sunlight. Low caffeine coffees are typically created by assaying caffeine levels of different bean lots and selecting the best flavor profile from the lots that are naturally lowest in caffeine.
Coffee production in Ethiopia is a longstanding tradition which dates back dozens of centuries. Ethiopia is where Coffea arabica, the coffee plant, originates. The plant is now grown in various parts of the world; Ethiopia itself accounts for around 17% of the global coffee market. Coffee is important to the economy of Ethiopia; around 30-35% of foreign income comes from coffee, with an estimated 15 million of the population relying on some aspect of coffee production for their livelihood. In 2013, coffee exports brought in $300 million, equivalent to 24% of that year's total exports.
Caffeine synthase is a methyltransferase enzyme involved in the caffeine biosynthesis pathway. It is expressed in tea species, coffee species, and cocoa species. The enzyme catalyses the following reactions:
Coffee is Uganda's top-earning export crop. In 1989 Uganda's coffee production capacity exceeded its quota of 2.3 million bags, but export volumes were still diminished by economic and security problems, and large amounts of coffee beans were still being smuggled out of Uganda for sale in neighbouring countries. Uganda is one of the few countries in the world with indigenous coffee, with Robusta coffee growing wild around Lake Victoria.
Thailand is one of the top 25 coffee producers in the world as of 2014, but its status as a coffee origin has not been widely known. Thailand traditionally produced mainly Robusta for industrial use, but the country has quickly become an exciting emerging origin for specialty Arabica and fine Robusta coffees. The origin is unique in that it exports very little coffee and most of the consumption remains in the country. There is a booming specialty coffee ecosystem where farmers, roasters, cafes and consumers symbiotically co-exist. It is often seen as an example of a working coffee ecosystem for an origin where coffee produced is sustainable from both economic and environmental perspectives.
Coffea stenophylla, also known as highland coffee or Sierra Leone coffee, is a species of Coffea originating from West Africa.
Coffea racemosa, also known as racemosa coffee and Inhambane coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It has naturally low levels of caffeine, less than half of that found in Coffea arabica, and a quarter of that in Robusta coffee.
Starmaya is an F1 hybrid coffee tree that can be propagated by seed rather than through somatic embryogenesis (SE). It was propagated from a parent plant that is male-sterile. This facilitates controlled pollination because breeders do not have to manually castrate each individual flower of the autogamous coffee tree.
↑ Charrier, A.; Berthaud, J. (1985). "Botanical Classification of Coffee". In Clifford, M. H.; Wilson, K. C. (eds.). Coffee: Botany, Biochemistry and Production of Beans and Beverage. Westport, Connecticut: AVI Publishing. p.14. ISBN978-0-7099-0787-9.
↑ Lashermes, P.; Combes, M.-C.; Robert, J.; Trouslot, P.; D'Hont, A.; Anthony, F.; Charrier, A. (1 March 1999). "Molecular characterisation and origin of the Coffea arabica L. genome". Molecular and General Genetics. 261 (2): 259–266. doi:10.1007/s004380050965. ISSN0026-8925. PMID10102360. S2CID7978085.
↑ van der Vossen, Herbert; Bertrand, Benoît; Charrier, André (2015). "Next generation variety development for sustainable production of arabica coffee (Coffea arabica L.): A review". Euphytica. 204 (2): 244. doi:10.1007/s10681-015-1398-z. S2CID17384126.
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