Crown Jewel: Coffee

Coffea arabica L.
Family: Rubiaceae 

The genus Coffea comprises about 60 species. The economically most important species is Coffea arabica or Arabian coffee (74% of the world production). Wild Coffea arabica grows in southern Ethiopia. Arab traders introduced coffee to southwest Arabia during the Middle Ages. An extensive coffee culture and coffee trade arose there.

Because of the Arabs' high coffee price, the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) decided to cultivate and transport coffee themselves. In 1696, they were able to successfully ship the first live coffee plants from Arabia to Batavia (now Jakarta). The first shipment of coffee seeds that were propagated by the VOC in Batavia reached Amsterdam in 1706. The coffee plants grew well in the greenhouses of the Amsterdam Hortus.

In 1714, a few of the plants were given to the French king Louis XIV as gifts. The French cultivated the plants and took them to their colonies in South and Middle America in 1725. Coffee finally reached Brazil from French Guiana. That country is currently the most important coffee producer. One could say, therefore, that the worldwide advance of coffee started with a single plant that was cultivated in the Amsterdam Hortus Botanicus.

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