The World of Caffeine (43 page)

Adapted from Garattini, “Composition of Coffee.”

In addition to
Coffea arabica
and
Coffea robusta,
the species
Coffea liberica,
native to Liberia, is much larger and sturdier than either and is under commercial cultivation in Africa. It is reported to produce an inferior-tasting brew that is high in caffeine. An allied Liberian species,
Coffea excelsa,
a vigorous plant discovered in 1905, yields beans that are small, bright yellow, and, like
liberica,
high in caffeine.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English began introducing
Coffea
arabica
into tropical colonies from Java to Jamaica. After obtaining the plant in 1725, Brazil quickly became and still remains the world’s largest supplier of coffee.

One of the great romances in the history of caffeine is the saga of how, in 1723, the prolific progenitor of what was to become the great Latin American plantations made the journey to the New World in the exigent care of a young aristocratic French military officer. The story is rooted over a century earlier, at a time when the Dutch, foremost in international trade, became the first to cultivate the exotic coffee tree in Europe after successfully transporting a specimen from Mocha in 1616. Efforts to cultivate seedlings in France failed until 1714, when the French government negotiated the delivery of a healthy five-foot tree from the Amsterdam botanical gardens established by Willem Wissen, which was presented by the burgomaster to Louis XIV and ceremoniously planted by the famous botanist de Jussieu in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. In a seminal historical position similar to that of three “Oriental” stallions, Darley Arabian, Godolphan Barb, and Byerly Turk, the acknowledged ancestors of all thoroughbred horses, this anonymous Arabian plant is known to have been the progenitor of most of the coffee trees of South America, Central America, and Mexico.

Gabriel d’Erchigny de Clieu, an enterprising naval officer, harbored a clandestine ambition when he temporarily returned to France from his post in colonial Martinique: He planned to secret a coffee plant from the royal gardens and introduce its cultivation to the West Indies. Getting his hands on one of the few rare bushes then under cultivation in Europe posed a daunting challenge. De Jussieu, conservator of the royal botanical gardens, guarded his precious charges with the jealousy of the dragon around the tree of golden apples. But, like Jason, de Clieu cannily circumvented the dreadful monitor that stood between him and the completion of his quest. We learn from his correspondence that, plunging into the intrigue of the court of Louis XIV, he employed the services of an aristocratic young lady to prevail on M. de Chirac, the royal physician, to purloin one of the exotic plants from the royal conservatory.

Embarking at Nantes in 1723, de Clieu, according to his published accounts, brought with him a single plant, which he installed in a glass-framed box intended to serve as a portable greenhouse. The crossing was a difficult one, and de Clieu heroically surmounted both human and natural adversities in order to triumphantly bring his charge to port in Martinique.

A fellow passenger, a young man who spoke French with a Dutch accent and was, perhaps, a Dutch espionage agent acting to protect his country’s trade interests, played the villain of the story by trying, unsuccessfully, to spoil de Clieu’s project. On one occasion de Clieu surprised the mysterious stranger when, after opening the framed glass enclosure, the interloper had reached in to snap off a twig. De Clieu writes:

In addition to being menaced by this spiteful nemesis, de Clieu shared with his fellow passengers a narrow escape from capture by Tunisian pirates and another from destruction in a heavy storm, which smashed the greenhouse but left the slip unscathed. However, the greatest threat to survival, both of the people and the plant, was a long calm that sustained itself until the supply of drinking water was nearly exhausted and what was left had to be rationed for the remaining weeks of the trip. De Clieu writes:

De Clieu by no means relaxed his vigilant care when at last disembarking in Martinique, where he planted the precious slip on his estate at Precheur. He writes:

As a result of his ministrations, the tree “multiplied with extraordinary rapidity and success,” and the first harvest was gathered in 1726. De Clieu describes the ensuing tropical storms, in the course of which Martinique’s cacao plantations were apocalyptically destroyed, clearing the way for the progeny of his charge. He was so successful that he was “enabled to send plants to Santo Domingo, Guadeloupe and other adjacent islands,” where they also flourished.

Even without the advantage of a flood to clear the ground, coffee plantations sprang up in other French colonies in the New World and, in fact, the first coffee bush planted in Brazil, destined to become the world’s biggest coffee supplier, was a
descendant of this French planting as well. By the end of the eighteenth century, coffee was under cultivation throughout the West Indies and in Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico. In 1746, de Clieu, by then a ship’s captain and honorary commander of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, was presented by the secretary of the navy at the court of Louis XV. The king, who, unlike his father Louis XIV, had learned to appreciate the beverage, honored de Clieu for his cultivation of coffee by returning him to Martinique as governor of the island.

Oddly enough, the story of Lt. Colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta, the military man responsible for planting the first coffee tree in Brazil, which itself became the progenitor of that country’s largest single crop to this day, is evocative of de Clieu’s. Palheta was a Spanish officer sent from Brazil to French Guiana to arbitrate an international controversy. While there, he engaged in an affair with the governor’s wife, who, in recognition of his erotic favors, gave him a bouquet at his departure in which was concealed a cutting of a coffee tree. Hitherto, the plant had been jealously and successfully kept from the Spanish colonies by the French and Dutch, but this smuggled lover’s gift breached their security, and so the Brazilian coffee line began.

Coffee Cultivation

Coffea arabica
flourishes in areas with moderate rainfall, about forty to sixty inches evenly distributed throughout the year, and at altitudes of between four thousand and five thousand feet above sea level (although in Ecuador it is cultivated as high as ninety-four hundred feet, while in subtropical Hawaii it is grown at sea level), and grows best where the temperature remains close to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Unlike most tropical plants,
Coffea arabica
can withstand low temperatures, although it is killed by frost. While the wild coffee tree grows to a height of twenty-five to thirty-five feet, the commercially cultivated variety of
Coffea arabica
attains only about sixteen feet and, to facilitate harvesting, is frequently trimmed to the height of a man.

Coffea arabica
produces abundant small, white, highly fragrant blossoms that develop in clusters, three or four years after planting. Flowers that open on a dry, sunny day produce more fruit than those opening on a wet day because of a greater opportunity for wind and insect pollination. The stunning beauty of a coffee estate in flower is transient: After two or three days, even gentle breezes will strip the flowers away, leaving behind only the dark green foliage and the berries. About six to eight months later, what are called the berries (or, more properly, the drupes), about one-half to three-quarters of an inch long, ripen, changing from dark green to yellow, then to red, and finally to deep crimson. Because of their size, color, and gloss at maturity, the ripe berries are called “cherries” by farmers and processors. Beneath the red skin of these cherries is a moist, sweet-tasting fleshy pulp, good for eating, that surrounds the green coffee bean. Most cherries contain two locules, each locule housing a seed, or bean. The seeds are each sheathed by two coverings: a thin, hard endocarp, called the “parchment,” and a thin translucent membranous pellicle, called the “silver skin.” Some cherries contain three beans, while others, generally those at the tips of the branches, contain only one round bean, known as a “peaberry.” All parts of the fruit and the leaves contain caffeine.

The berries are picked by hand or shaken from the bush onto mats, producing a yield per acre that varies enormously, because a single tree, depending on its individual character and on climate and altitude, can produce between one and twelve pounds of dried beans a year. The best time for harvesting varies with the region in which the coffee is grown. Under ideal conditions, as in Java, planting is staggered throughout the year, blooming and fruiting are continuous, and therefore the coffee can be harvested almost continuously. Where conditions are less than perfect, as in parts of Brazil, coffee is harvested in the winter only.

Gourmet coffees are exclusively high-quality, mild varieties of
Coffea arabica
(“mild” in the coffee trade means lacking harsh, hard taste characteristics), principally from Latin America, excluding Brazil. Excellent varieties of
Coffea arabica
are also obtained from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Cameroon and the Yemen. Originally, all fine coffees came exclusively from the Yemen, from where they were shipped to the world through the port of Mocha. Soon after World War I, the wells of Mocha dried up, and coffee cultivation was largely abandoned. Today, the relatively small amount of coffee exported from the Yemen leaves through the port of Hodeida, but it still carries the traditional name of Mocha, which has never stopped being synonymous in the public’s mind with the best beans. Most Brazilian coffees are also varieties of
Coffea arabica,
but they are characterized by less refined flavor and aroma than those of the mild group.

In Costa Rica, competitively cultivating the
Coffea arabica
plant is essential to the nation’s livelihood. This means producing an abundant crop and processing it quickly and well. Traditionally, small coffee farmers tended their patches of plants. Today, they are being replaced by large plantation holders, who are increasingly planting an improved strain of
Coffea
arabica
called “sun coffee.” The name for this variety, developed in the early 1970s, derives from the fact that, unlike other strains of the coffee tree that require a mixture of sun and shade, these new plants need, and can stand up to, the unremitting tropical blaze. That means that they can be planted without the benefit of a surrounding shade species. This is good news for farmers who are trying to increase coffee yields, because the entire acreage under cultivation can be dedicated exclusively to
coffee plants. As against this agrarian strategy, some environmentalists argue that creating an exclusive crop, or monocrop, of coffee results in catastrophic soil erosion, causing massive damage to the land within a few years.

In 1898 the French merchant Emil Laurent took advantage of the recent discovery, made in Uganda near Lake Victoria, of
canephora,
a new species of
Coffea
. After identifying a variety of
canephora,
which he called
“Coffea lauurentii,”
he brought it for marketing to a Belgian horticultural firm. The firm decided that applying the name “robusta” to this variety would be conducive to sales of this harsher and more heavily caffeine-charged brew by suggesting both a robust flavor and a robust kick. The beans from
Coffea robusta,
although yielding coffee with a flatter and less aromatic flavor than
Coffea arabica
varieties, are nevertheless widely used, particularly in the form of soluble, or instant, coffees.

The hardiness of the plant is also suggested by its name, for
Coffea robusta
possesses greater strength and, because it contains nearly twice the caffeine (1.3 percent of the dry weight of
arabica
beans, as compared with 2.4 percent of the dry weight of
robusta
beans), greater resistance to disease and insects than
Coffea arabica.
It yields more fruit, grows at lower altitudes and in a wider variety of soil conditions, and adapts to warm humid climates to which
Coffea arabica
is not well suited. It also produces a full crop within four years, less than half the time needed for
Coffea arabica. Coffea robusta
berries take from two to three months longer to ripen than do
Coffea arabica
berries, though the plants typically yield larger harvests. Harvesting is easier because the
Coffea robusta
berries stay on the tree when they are fully ripe, instead of dropping off as do
Coffea arabica
berries, and so the picking can be delayed to suit the planter’s convenience. These differences mean that it costs less to grow and harvest
Coffea robusta
than
Coffea arabica
coffee, which accounts for its increasing use as a source of cheap blenders and as the basis of instant coffees, despite its inferior taste. Many familiar commercial coffee products are mixtures that combine the characteristics of different species and varieties, blended to satisfy a wide range of consumer tastes.