Glossary: coffee

Ethiopia is thought to be the motherland of the first coffee beans, which, throughout the ages, found their way to Brazil and Colombia'"the two largest coffee producers today. Coffee plantations abound throughout other South and Central American countries, Cuba, Hawaii, Indonesia, Jamaica and many African nations. There are hundreds of different coffee species but the two most commercially viable are coffea robusta and coffea arabica. The sturdy, disease-resistant coffea robusta, which thrives at lower altitudes, produces beans with a harsher, more single-dimensional flavor than the more sensitive coffea arabica, which grows at high altitudes (3,000 to 6,500 feet) and produces beans with elegant, complex flavors. Some coffee companies are now identifying their beans as shade-grown coffee; this refers to a traditional, environmentally friendly method of growing coffee under tree canopies as opposed to the cultivation of coffee species that need ample sun, a method that requires deforestation. The coffee plant is actually a small tree that bears a fruit called the 'coffee cherry.'

From THE NEW FOOD LOVERS COMPANION, Fourth edition by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst. Copyright © 2007, 2001, 1995, 1990 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.