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Coffea arabica
Also called Coffee, Arabica Coffee, Coffeetree, Kona Coffee, Coffee Tree
Coffea arabica is a shrub or small tree in the coffee family, grown mainly for its beans, which supply about 60% of world coffee. It is grown as a crop and sometimes as a container or indoor plant; the key to success is steady warmth, partial shade and well-drained soil.
Coffea arabica (), also known as the Arabica coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the coffee and madder family Rubiaceae. It is believed to be the first species of coffee to have been cultivated and is the dominant cultivar, representing about 60% of global production. Coffee produced from the less acidic, more bitter, and more highly caffeinated robusta bean (C. canephora) makes up most of the remaining coffee production. The natural populations of Coffea arabica are restricted to the forests of South Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Yemen.
Coffea arabica accounts for 60% of the world's coffee production.
C. arabica takes approximately seven years to mature fully, and it does best with 1.2–1.8 metres (47–71 in) of rain, evenly distributed throughout the year. It is usually cultivated at an altitude between 1,200 and 1,500 m (3,900 and 4,900 ft), but there are plantations that grow it as low as sea level and as high as 2,800 m (9,200 ft).
Endemic to the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia, Coffea arabica is grown in dozens of countries between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. It is commonly used as an understory shrub. It has also been recovered from the Boma Plateau in South Sudan. Coffea arabica is also found on Mount Marsabit in northern Kenya, but it is unclear whether this is a truly native or naturalised occurrence; recent studies support it being naturalised. The species is widely naturalised in areas outside its native land, in many parts of Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, India, China, and assorted islands in the Caribbean and in the Pacific.
Coffea abbayesii · Coffea affinis · Bengal coffee · Coffea brassii · Robusta coffee · Coffea charrieriana · Excelsa Coffee · Coffea kapakata · Liberian coffee · Coffea magnistipula · Inhambane Coffee · Coffea
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Coffea arabica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
