Etymology

The name Coffea is borrowed from the Arabic word kahwa, meaning coffee. Arabica means "from Arabia".

Description and flowering period

It is a shrub reaching from 9 to 12 meters in height. The 10cm long, glossy dark-green leaves are persistent and elliptical. The white flowers bear 5 petals. They are arranged in dense rounded clusters called glomerules which stem from leaf-nodes. The fruit is a reddish to purple drupe (fleshy pit fruit) called coffee cherry. Its pulp is sweet. It contains two seeds, facing each other, presenting the characteristic coffee bean shape.

Habitat

It requires a well-drained, predominantly silty soil. It requires a sunny location yet appreciates the micro climate provided by taller surrounding trees. It is frost intolerant.

Uses

Food & drink: As a drink (coffee made from roasted beans). Arabica coffee contains less caffeine and is more sought after for its aroma than robusta coffee, which comes from another species: Coffea canephora.

Notes

Cultivated for over a thousand years, it was the only coffee species in culture until the 19th century. Nowadays, it is mostly grown in south-America (Brazil, Colombia), even though beans produced in Ethiopia remain the most sought after.
Arabica coffee is particularly at risk due to global warming: coffee leaf rust (caused by a fungus, which incurs a characteristic discolouration on the leaves and ultimately results in the plant’s premature ageing and death) as well as attacks from the coffee berry borer, a beetle that feeds on coffee beans, and whose numbers have significantly increased as a result of climate change.

Translated by: François Saint-Hillier – MNHN