2. • Coffee is a brewed drink prepared
from roasted coffee beans, which
are the seeds of "berries" from
the Coffea plant. Coffee plants are
cultivated in over 70 countries,
primarily in the equatorial regions
of the Americas, Southeast Asia,
India and Africa. The two most
commonly grown are the highly
regarded arabica, and the less
sophisticated but stronger and
more hardy robusta. The latter is
resistant to the coffee leaf rust,
Hemileia vastatrix, but has a more
bitter taste. Once ripe, coffee
beans are picked, processed, and
dried. Green (unroasted) coffee
beans are one of the most traded
agricultural commodities in the
world. Once traded, the beans are
roasted to varying degrees,
depending on the desired flavor,
before being ground and brewed
to create coffee.
3. • Coffee is slightly acidic (pH
5.0–5.1) and can have a
stimulating effect on humans
because of its caffeine content.
Coffee is one of the most
popular drinks in the world. It
can be prepared and
presented in a variety of ways.
The effect of coffee on human
health has been a subject of
many studies; however, results
have varied in terms of coffee's
relative benefit. The majority of
recent research suggests that
moderate coffee consumption
is benign or mildly beneficial in
healthy adults. However, the
diterpenes in coffee may
increase the risk of
heart disease
4. • Coffee cultivation first took
place in Southern Arabia. The
earliest credible evidence of
coffee-drinking appears in the
middle of the 15th century in
the Sufi shrines of Yemen.In
the Horn of Africa and Yemen,
coffee was used in local
religious ceremonies. As these
ceremonies conflicted with the
beliefs of the Christian church,
the Ethiopian Church banned
the secular consumption of
coffee until the reign of
Emperor Menelik II. The
beverage was also banned in
Ottoman Turkey during the
17th century for political
reasons, and was associated
with rebellious political
activities in Europe.
5. Etymology
• The first reference to coffee in the
English language is in the
form chaona, dated to 1598 and
understood to be a misprint of chaoua
[14] (equivalent, in the
orthography of the time, to chaova).
This term and "coffee" both derive
from the Ottoman Turkish kahve,
possibly by way of the Italian caffè. In
turn this derives from the Arabic
qahwah (]51[.)قهوةThis is traditionally
held to have originally referred to a
type of wine, whose etymology is given
by Arab lexicographers as deriving
from the verb qahā in reference to the
drink's reputation as an
appetite suppressant. It is sometimes
alternatively traced to the
Arabic quwwa ("power, energy") or to
Kaffa, a medieval kingdom in Ethiopia
whence the plant was exported to
Arabia. Others with "equally little
authority" even hold that the region
was named after the drink. The
connection to "Kaffa" has been
disputed, however. The
name qahwah is not used for the berry
or plant (the products of the region),
which are known in Arabic
as bunn and Shoa as būn. Semitic had
a root qhh "dark color", which, since
"coffee" is dark in color, became a
natural designation for the beverage.
6. • Coffea arabica is
predominantly self-pollinating,
and as a result the seedlings
are generally uniform and vary
little from their parents. In
contrast, Coffea canephora,
and C. liberica are self-
incompatible and require
outcrossing. This means that
useful forms and hybrids must
be propagated
vegetatively. Cuttings, grafting,
and budding are the usual
methods of vegetative
propagation.On the other
hand, there is great scope for
experimentation in search of
potential new strains.
Biology
7. Cultivation
• The traditional method of
planting coffee is to place
20 seeds in each hole at
the beginning of the
rainy season. This
method loses about 50%
of the seeds' potential, as
about half fail to sprout. A
more effective method of
growing coffee, used in
Brazil, is to raise
seedlings in nurseries
that are then planted
outside at six to twelve
months. Coffee is
often intercropped with
food crops, such
as corn, beans, or rice
during the first few years
of cultivation as farmers
become familiar with its
requirements
