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Coffea racemosa
Also called Wild Coffee, Mozambique Coffee
Coffea racemosa is an open-branched shrub or small tree, up to about 3.5 m tall, native to coastal forest in northern KwaZulu-Natal and Mozambique. It is grown for its low-caffeine beans, which are roasted and ground for a coffee drink.
Coffea racemosa, also known as racemosa coffee and Inhambane coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. It has naturally low levels of caffeine, less than half of that found in Coffea arabica, and a quarter of that in Robusta coffee.
Coffea racemosa is endemic to the coastal forest belt between northern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and Mozambique, found in an area less than 150 km2 (58 sq mi) in size. It was widely cultivated by the Portuguese during the 1960–1970s in Mozambique; as of 2018 only two plantations, at Ibo Island and in Hluhluwe, remained.
Coffea racemosa is an open-branched shrub or small tree growing up to 3.5 m (11 ft) tall. It has white to pinkish singular flowers (2 cm (1 in) in diameter) or in few-flowered clusters along the branches, which bloom between September and February. The fruit is near-spherical in shape and purple to black when ripe. The fruit is harvested from the wild for local use as a coffee. The beans are one third of the size of Arabica beans. The beans are roasted and ground to a powder then used to make coffee. Salt is sometimes sprinkled over them as they are roasted.
Coffea abbayesii · Coffea affinis · Arabian coffee · Bengal coffee · Coffea brassii · Robusta coffee · Coffea charrieriana · Excelsa Coffee · Coffea kapakata · Liberian coffee · Coffea magnistipula · Coffea
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Coffea racemosa 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.
