Coffee
Botanical Name: Coffea arabica
Family: Rubiaceae
Origin: Ethiopia and Yemen
Source: Incredible Edibles: White starry flowers in spring form in clusters along branches having a strong Jasmine like fragrance, followed by green, coffee cherries. The coffee cherries turn bright red for Christmas, changing to brown/black when ripe in late summer. Each Cherry contains 2 seeds (beans). A cone shaped, shallow rooting shrub. Evergreen with glossy green lanceolate leaves up to 20cm long. The coffee plant will grow to 2-5m with a vertical central leader and horizontal branches. Self-fertile, takes 3-4 years to fruit. Harvest your coffee cherry when almost black and dry in the sun and then separate the seed from the cherry by breaking away the husk.
- 09/02/2010 Purchased a lovely specimen. Excited to grow this inside and delighted to learn that it was originally described by Antoine de Jussieu as Jasminum arabicum and that its blossoms smell like my favorite scent.
- Growing coffee beans at home
- Coffee arabica on Wikipedia: According to legend, human cultivation of coffee began after goats in Ethiopia were seen mounting each other after eating the leaves and fruits of the coffee tree. In reality, human consumption of coffee fruits probably began long before humans took up pastoralism. However, In Ethiopia there are still some locales where people drink a tisane made from the leaves of the coffee tree.
