The Coffee Plant: Cultivation, Varieties, and Health Benefits

The coffee plant is a woody perennial evergreen dicotyledon that belongs to the Rubiaceae family. It has a distinct structure with a main vertical trunk (orthotropic) and primary, secondary, and tertiary horizontal branches (plagiotropic). Today, two main species of coffee are cultivated: Coffea arabica, known as Arabica coffee, and Coffea canephora, known as Robusta coffee.

Arabica coffee accounts for 75-80% of the world's coffee production. It is renowned for its superior flavor, although it contains less caffeine than Robusta. Arabica plants are more delicate and require specific growing conditions, typically thriving at higher altitudes with cooler climates. In contrast, Robusta coffee plants are more robust and resilient, making them easier to cultivate in a wider range of environments. However, Robusta produces a beverage with a more bitter taste and higher caffeine content.

The coffee plant can grow to heights of 10 meters if not pruned. However, producing countries maintain the coffee at a height reasonable for easy harvesting, usually between 2-3 meters. Arabica plants in the wild can grow between 7-12 meters tall and have an open branching system. The leaves are opposite, simple elliptic-ovate to oblong, 6-12 cm long and 4-8 cm broad, glossy dark green. The flowers are produced in axillary clusters, each flower white, and 1-1.5 cm in diameter. The fruit, known as a coffee cherry, is a berry 10-15 mm long, maturing from bright red to purple, and contains two seeds (the coffee 'bean').

Beyond its popular use as a beverage, coffee has been used in traditional medicine for various purposes. It is reported to have analgesic, anaphrodisiac, anorexic, antidotal, cardiotonic, CNS-stimulant, counterirritant, diuretic, hypnotic, lactagogue, nervine, and stimulant properties. Coffee is a folk remedy for ailments such as asthma, atropine-poisoning, fever, flu, headache, jaundice, malaria, migraine, narcosis, nephrosis, opium-poisoning, sores, and vertigo.

Recent studies have also highlighted coffee's potential health benefits. Moderate coffee consumption has been linked to a lower risk of several chronic diseases, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. Its antioxidant properties are believed to contribute to these health benefits, making coffee not only a beloved beverage but also a potential ally in maintaining health.
The Coffee Plant: Cultivation, Varieties, and Health Benefits

Cultivation and planting of coffee plant

Coffee production requires a great deal of human effort, from the coffee crop to the last drop. Beginning with the prudent planting of the trees to the painstaking picking of the berries; from the washing, drying, and sizing to the sorting, grading and selecting, the delicate beans rarely leave the touch of human hands.

To value a cup of coffee is to respect the labor of love required – the caring human effort that was put into producing it. The most favorable seedbeds for the cultivation of coffee are soils that are volcanic in origin and rich in nitrogen.

The optimum climate condition are those prevailing in the tropics, where temperate remain between 59 degree and 77 degree F. Wind, frost, leaf disease, and even exercise heat will destroy the shrubs.

Plenty of rain, in combination with alternating dry periods, will produce the best crops. Carefully selected seeds are sown into suitable, prepared seedbeds.

Slender shoots sprout up in eight weeks. After one year, the young plants are transplant to permanent coffee plantation sites. Young plants do not bear fruit (berries) for the first two years; however they still require great care in hoeing, weeding, pruning and frequent watering t0 ensure proper growth.

The plant begin their productive life span of 15 to 20 years after their first flowering that results in coffee berries and thus beans, with an annual yield of 1 to 2 pounds (500 to 900 g) of coffee per plant each year.

When the coffee plant’s delicate white flowers blossom, the orange and jasmine fragrance is an intoxicating as the flowers are beautiful; however, the blossom are short lived, lasting only two to three days. Clusters of green berries then appear, turning yellow, red, and then a deep crimson color. When the berries are almost black, they are ready to be harvested.

Cultivation and planting of coffee plant

Coffee arabica plant

Arabica is used in the roast and ground coffee market and is added to blends of Robusta to improve quality of instant coffee. Brazil and Columbia are the major producing countries.

Coffea arabica is the only species occurring in Ethiopia and is geographically isolated from the rest of the Coffea species. It is naturally restricted to two isolated mountain forests on the western and eastern sides of the Great Rift Valley in Southern Ethiopia.

Wild plants grow between 9 and 12 m tall. They have an open branching system; the leaves are opposite, simple elliptic-ovate to oblong, 6–12 cm long and 4–8 cm broad, glossy dark green. Coffea arabica is an evergreen, shrub or small tree, up to 5 m tall when unpruned, glabrous, with small glossy leaves.

The seeds are contained in a kernel, also called “cherry”, 10–15 mm in diameter, maturing red to purple and typically contains two seeds, which are the seeds used to produce coffee.

C. arabica grows best with 1.0–1.5 meters of rain, evenly distributed throughout the year, followed by a dry season lasting 2-3 months, this dry season suits best depending on the species. Arabica coffee prefers a cool temperature with an optimum daily temperature of 68° to 75°F (20° to 24°C).
Coffee arabica plant

Coffee plant cultivation

Coffee plants are grown in greenhouses until they are a few inches tall. After about six months, they are transplanted into rows about three to ten feet (one to three meters apart on a coffee plantation.

A cultivated coffee plant is a small tree or a shrub. It consists of the three recognizable vegetative organs - stems, leaves and roots – common to most plants. It has a main trunks and horizontal branches that’s support its large, elliptical-shape leaves, which are dark green and shiny due to a waxy coating.

The coffee plant when regularly grown and pruned forms a very handsome bush, and in a state of health is well covered with dark green foliage.

Farmers normally regularly prune to about 12 to 15 feet high in order to make harvesting easier. During growing season, farmers inspect coffee plants for diseases such as leaf rust and for insect that damage the crops.

The leaves are from 3 to 5 inches long and nearly 2 broad, having a wavy margin and beautiful glossy appearance. A healthy, mature coffee bush may yield from 12 to 15 pounds of coffee cherries per year.

Arabica coffee grows best in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. In particular, coffee plants are adapted to warm climates with year-round temperatures about 70 ° F; at least 60 inches of rainfall a year. Robusta is more tolerant of warm temperatures and is cultivated in poorer soils closer to the equator.
Coffee plant cultivation

Coffea Liberica

Coffea Liberica
Coffea liberica is grown chiefly in Malaysia and Guyana.

Although a strong (parasite-resistant) plant, with fruits and seeds almost double the size of the favored arabica, Coffea liberica produces beans of inferior quality.

Thus, liberica beans are grown primarily for local consumption and are seldom exported – although up to decade or so ago, the coffee was appreciated by the Scandinavian countries.

Some Malays steep the leave of Coffea liberica, much as tea is brewed.

Interestingly, the leaves have even more caffeine than the beans.

It is a species characterized by vigorous growth, large, leathery leaves and heavy berries and beans.

Coffea liberica is a lowland species adapted to warm equatorial forests. It has been distributed in the lowland tropics from plants collected and distributed by Kew Gardens in London.

It is an evergreen shrub or tree that can reach 17 m, has dimorphic branching and large leathery leaves.

The large flowers are self sterile and open at irregular interval, rather than in flushes as in the other two cultivated species; it produces larger fruits than the other two species.
It is tolerant of poor soils and thrives best in hot wet conditions.
Coffea Liberica

Coffee Plant and World Production

Coffee Plant and World Production
The coffee plant belongs to the genus Coffea in the Rubiaceae botanical family. Although there are numerous species, only two of them are used for cultivation world wide: Coffea arabica L. and Coffea canephora. Coffea robusta is a variety of Coffea canephora. Coffea excelsa, cultivated in Central Africa, is one of the numerous varieties of Coffea dewevrei; its total production is much smaller than that of the previous cited species.

The height of adult coffee trees ranges form one foot to fifty feet, depending on the species. There are numerous varieties of coffea arabica, which originated in Ethiopia. This coffea grows at altitudes between 3250-6500 feet in Latin America, Reunion Island and Indonesia; this species represents 75% of coffea production world wide. Coffea canephora, second in production, is mainly grown in Africa and Indonesia. The most common variety is robusta (95% of plantation of Coffea canephora). It is cultivated in Africa, in Far East, South Sea Islands and in Brazil in regions where arabica cannot be grown because of climatic condition.

The trunk of the coffee is straight and smooth, its branches hang low and slope downwards, the leaves are green, elongated and non-deciduous. White blossoms (fragrant star shaped flowers that last only a few days) along with green, yellowing or red fruit coexist on the same branch. The fruit looks like cherries; its contains two seeds that will become coffee beans, Arabica coffee beans are oval and long with a subtle taste and fruit-like aroma while robusta beans are smaller, round, irregular, and have a stringer taste.

The word ‘drupe’ is the technical term used to designate the fruit. It matures in six to fourteen month, depending on the variety; the fruit is covered by a very tough skin-like, smooth red film called the ‘epicarp’. It covers the ‘mesocarp’ which contains mostly water (70 to 85%) and has a high concentration of sugar and pectin. The ‘mesocarp’ represents 40 to 65% of the fruit’s weight, depending on the variety, The bean is formed of a horn-like albumen (endosperm) made up of starch, lipids, reducing sugars, sucrose, tannins, caffeine, etc, and 20% water. Two envelopes cover the endosperm, one is internal: the ‘spermoderm’ or ‘silverskin’; the other external, the ‘endocarp’ or parchment.
Coffee Plant and World Production