{"id":75,"date":"2009-07-27T17:16:06","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T00:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/2009\/07\/27\/monday-magnoliophyte-coffee\/"},"modified":"2009-07-27T17:16:06","modified_gmt":"2009-07-28T00:16:06","slug":"monday-magnoliophyte-coffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/2009\/07\/27\/monday-magnoliophyte-coffee\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Magnoliophyte: Coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coffee plants are bushes or small trees of the genus Coffea<\/em> native to subtropical Africa and southern Asia. They grow to 10-12 feet, and are most commonly cultivated at high elevations. Their requirements for alkaline soil and above freezing temperatures can make them difficult to grow, and hence they can only be cultivated tropically, often with much addition of fertilizers and lime, which is easily washed away down the mountainsides on which they are grown. The alkalinity of the soil is responsible for the accumulation of alkaloids in the “beans”, such as caffeine and theobromine, which give the seeds their stimulant properties. They are not true beans, however (belonging to the legume family Fabaceae), but are rather the stony pit of a drupe (see my entry on peaches<\/a>): red or purple fruits containing one or two seeds.<\/p>\n

The seeds are rich in carbohydrates and lipids, and can be eaten whole, though the alkaloids have a bitter taste, and in fact deter many pests from eating the plants. The most common use of the beans is to roast and grind them for brewing coffee. Over 90 different coffee plant species are cultivated around the tropical areas of the globe, from Central America to Java, including 2 newly discovered species in Cameroon that don’t contain caffeine and self-pollinate. These features could be of great economic value upon hybridization with existing cultivars. The two most commonly cultivated species are Coffea canephora<\/em> (South\/Southeast Asia and Africa) and Coffea arabica<\/em> (Africa and Latin America).<\/p>\n

\"Coffee
\n\"Coffee
\nEudicots; Asterids; Gentianales; Rubiaceae; Coffea arabica<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Coffee contains many antioxidants, and its energizing effect has been known at least since the fifteenth century, and likely much earlier, with probable origins in Ethiopia. It quickly became the social beverage of choice where alcohol was prohibited, and hence became a staple of Muslim culture in Turkey and throughout the Middle East. In response, many Christian sects forbade coffee drinking, as LDS members still do today. Interestingly, it is traded on the market today as a commodity, even though it is not (as a fresh produce, its value is affected by length of time held). It has numerous health benefits, especially in risks from various heart diseases, though it worsens acid reflux, iron absorption, and caffeine has many adverse affects on several body systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coffee plants are bushes or small trees of the genus Coffea native to subtropical Africa and southern Asia. They grow to 10-12 feet, and are most commonly cultivated at high elevations. Their requirements for alkaline soil and above freezing temperatures can make them difficult to grow, and hence they can only be cultivated tropically, often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}