Coffee Grows on Tropical Evergreen Shrubs

Many people enjoy coffee, especially during the holidays. There are so many different types of coffee and ways to brew it. We drink coffee every morning while we enjoy nature all around us – either from the hot tub or dining room windows.

Jamaica's Blue Mountain coffee

During my travels, I’ve seen coffee growing in many different places. Coffee plantations scattered Costa Rica as we drive from San Jose through the Tilaran Mountain range. I visited a coffee farm with antique processing displays in Puerto Rico. We bicycled through Jamaica’s blue mountains and drank fresh coffee brewed over an open fire.

Coffee beans grow on the Coffea arabica plant, which is an evergreen shrubby tree. Its leaves are broad, shiny, and shaped like an arrowhead. In the wild, it grows to a height of 14 to 20 feet, but when cultivated it is usually kept pruned to about 6 to 10 feet to facilitate picking the beans and to encourage heavy bearing.

The plant has fragrant flowers that are typically pollinated by native honeybees. The flowers are small, white blossoms that cluster at the base of the leaves. These mature into a small oval berry that are about the color and size of a small cherry. Inside of the skin and pulp, two coffee beans are nestled with their flat sides together. About four thousand beans make a single pound of coffee. 

Coffee bean harvest is done by hand and only when the cherries are ripe. A worker can pick 7-12 baskets a day. Once picked, the cherries are transported to coffee mills where the cherry skin is immediately removed from the coffee cherry.

Coffee grown as houseplant

Processing involved many steps including washing, pulping, fermenting, drying, storing, and finally roasting and packaging. Beans are a pale tan color until they are roasted, which changes the beans to a beautiful shiny brown color. Roasting is done according to customer preference such as medium roast, full bodied dark roast, or espresso roast.

I really like a robust cup of coffee. The best coffee I ever had was in Ecuador, fresh brewed by my daughters-in-law’s grandmother. She roasted and ground the beans herself, and then slowly dripped a small amount of water through the grounds to form a think almost-syrup liquid. The syrup was mixed with hot water at the table to each person’s taste.

I also enjoy coffee in a French press, Italian Moka pot, Espresso machine, boiled on the stove, and auto dripped in a traditional American coffee maker. I typically drink my coffee black, but I also really like a skinny, soy latte.

As you enjoy your coffee this holiday season, think about the coffee plant and how it was grown. You might also try growing a coffee plant as a houseplant.