Coffea Arabica is a native to northeastern Africa, although it is now grown in many countries. This evergreen shrub may attain heights of twenty to forty feet in the wild, but when under cultivation, the plant is kept pruned to about eight feet to make it easier for pickers to0 reach the fruit.
Coffea Arabica has glossy dark green leaves that are smooth and shiny on the upper side and paler below. The leaves can be up to two and a half inches wide and can grow up to six inches in length. In late summer, the plants puts forth dense clusters of fragrant white flowers that spring from the base of the leaves. The pretty blooms last only two days before giving way to the coffee cherries. These cherries, which are initially green in color, take from seven to eleven months to ripen, depending on both climate and variety. When ripe, the nearly one inch diameter oval fruits are a rosy red with two green seeds, or coffee beans, snuggly nestled inside.
Coffea Arabica doesn’t bear fruit until the trees are three to five years old. However the obliging shrub continues to produce crops of coffee cherries for twenty to thirty years, with the beans becoming richer and more concentrated over time. A tropical plant, it prefers temperatures that ranges from the high fifties to the mid seventies, and thrives in areas that have an annual rainfall of around sixty inches and an altitude between 3,000 and 6,500 feet. It is especially prolific in the tropics of South America.
Coffea Arabica is the most widely grown species of coffee, accounting for about 70 percent of the world’s coffee production. Arabica coffees are also the premium coffees of the world – meaning that they are the best – and therefore among the most expensive. For example, Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and Hawaii’s Kona coffee, both of which are highly priced arabicas. Arabica trees typically yield one to one and a half pounds of green coffee per year, and the beans contain about one percent caffeine by weight.
Coffea Arabica
