What is coffee?

 Coffee Beans

What is coffee?

• Coffee is a world wide loved beverage, that can be brewed or boiled, with a dark, acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of a plant named, as you would suspect, coffee plant. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in many countries,. It's one of the most-consumed beverages in the world.
• Coffee berries, which contain the coffee seeds or "beans", are produced by several species of small bush of the Coffea genus. The two coffee berries most commonly grown are the well known coffeea Arabica, and the hardier coffea Canephora(resistant to the devastating coffee leaf rust). From start to finish coffee beans go through many stages like processing, drying, roasting, grounding, brewing etc.

What is coffee - Biology

Coffee canephora berries

From biology we must understand that all coffee plants are included in the large family Rubiaceae. They are evergreen (they remain unwithered through the winter, or retain unwithered leaves until the leaves of the next year are expanded) shrubs or small trees that may grow 5 m (15 ft) tall. The leaves are dark green and glossy, usually 10–15 cm (4–6 in) long and 6 cm (2.4 in) wide. The flowers are axillary, and clusters of fragrant white flowers bloom simultaneously and are followed by oval berries of about 1.5 cm (0.6 in). Green when immature, they ripen to yellow, then crimson, before turning black on drying. Coffea arabica is predominantly self-pollinating. In contrast, Coffea canephora, C. excelsa, and C. liberica are self-incompatible and require outcrossing. This means that useful forms and hybrids must be propagated vegetatively.

What is coffee - Cultivation

The traditional method of planting coffee is to put 20 seeds in each hole at the beginning of the rainy season; half are eliminated naturally. A more effective method of growing coffee is to raise seedlings in nurseries that are then planted outside. Coffee is often intercropped with food crops, such as corn, beans, or rice during the first years of cultivation.

Coffee flowers

Of the two main species grown, arabica coffee is generally more highly regarded than robusta coffee. Robusta tends to be bitter and have less flavor but better body than arabica. For these reasons, about three-quarters of coffee cultivated worldwide is C. arabica. Robusta strains also contain about 40–50% more caffeine than arabica. For this reason, it is used as an inexpensive substitute for arabica in many commercial coffee blends. Good quality robusta beans are used in some espresso blends to provide a full-bodied taste, a better foam head and to lower the ingredient cost.

However, Coffea canephora is less susceptible to disease than C. arabica and can be cultivated in lower altitudes and warmer climates where C. arabica will not thrive. Over 900 species of insect have been recorded as pests of coffee crops worldwide. Of these, over a third are beetles, and over a quarter are bugs. Some 20 species of nematodes, 9 species of mites, several snails and slugs also attack the crop. Birds and rodents sometimes eat coffee berries but their impact is minor compared to invertebrates.

What is coffee - Ecology

Originally, coffee farming was done in the shade. Remnant forest trees were used for this purpose, but many species have been planted as well. This method is commonly referred to as the traditional shaded method, or "shade-grown". Starting in the 1970s, many farmers switched their production method to sun cultivation, in which coffee is grown in rows under full sun with little or no forest. This causes berries to ripen more rapidly and bushes to produce higher yields, but requires the clearing of trees and increased use of fertilizer and pesticides, which damage the environment and cause health problems. Ultimately, unshaded coffee enhanced by fertilizer use yields the highest amounts of coffee, although unfertilized shaded crops generally yield higher than unfertilized unshaded crops—namely the response to fertilizer is much greater in full sun. Although traditional coffee production causes berries to ripen more slowly and produce lower yields, the quality of the coffee is allegedly superior. In addition, the traditional shaded method provides living space for many wildlife species. Proponents of shade cultivation say environmental problems such as deforestation, pesticide pollution, habitat destruction, and soil and water degradation are the side effects of the practices employed in sun cultivation.

Coffee Plantation

A "shade-grown" and organic coffees campaign has been led by the American Birding Association, National Arbor Day Foundation and the Rainforrest Alliance. Shaded coffee cultivation systems show greater biodiversity than full-sun systems, and those more distant from continuous forest compare rather poorly to undisturbed native forest in terms of habitat value for some bird species.

Another issue concerning coffee is its use of water. Using industrial farming practices, it takes about 140 liters (37 U.S. gal) of water to grow the coffee beans needed to produce one cup of coffee, and the coffee is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage, such as Ethiopia. By using sustainable methods, the amount of water usage can be dramatically reduced, while retaining comparable yields. For comparison one egg requires an input of 454 liters (120 U.S. gal) of water; one serving of milk requires an input of 246 liters (65 U.S. gal) of water; one serving of rice requires an input of 132 liters (35 U.S. gal) of water; and one glass of wine requires an input of 120 liters (32 U.S. gal) of water. Coffee grounds may be used for composting or as a mulch. They are especially appreciated by worms and acid-loving plants such as blueberries.