Coffea arabica is a glossy leaved shrub or small tree with fragrant white flowers and red berry fruit. It was introduced into Arabia, in Yemen in the fifteenth century where it soon became used as the preferred beverage. Coffea Arabica is actually indigenous to Ethiopia, Arabia’s neighbor across the Red Sea.
The Dutch, French, and English introduced Coffea arabica into their tropical colonies from the late seventeenth century onwards. By 1723 Brazil had obtained seed and to this day Brazil is one of the world’s major suppliers of coffee.The growth of Coffea arabica is best between the two tropics, but at an elevation such that the temperature does not arise much above 72 degree F or below 64 degree F and where the rainfall is fairly evenly spread throughout the year and is 40 to 60 in. The usual elevation is 4,000 to 5,000 ft.
It can tolerate cooler temperatures but is killed by frost. Shading of the plants does not seem essential although some shading prevents overbearing and weakening of the trees. Mulching is advantageous so that the roots are kept cool.
For the most part, when Coffea arabica is grown in these conditions it is relatively disease-resistant, but where it has been planted at a warmer and wetter elevation the plants have been lost to fungal disease.
In particular, the leaf spot disease Hemileia vastatrix has caused great losses. Plantations that thrived initially in Sri Lanka have been essentially destroyed by this disease. In Brazil during the mid 1970s vast plantation were lost to frost damage.
Coffea arabica
