Hi, my name is Byron Martin, here at Logee's. Today we're going to be talking about coffee.
One of my favorite drinks, and a beverage that's drank by the millions, and
perhaps billions of cups every day, around the world.
This is coffee. This is 'Coffea arabica' which is the- probably considered
the best coffee, in terms of its quality and flavor.
It's a native of Africa, but it's grown throughout the world in tropical areas
where the beans are harvested, and obviously roasted, for our beverage.
You can see the leaves are very shiny; it's a beautiful tree. It has a lateral
branching habit, that kind of comes out and weeps down.
One thing about coffee is, it's very easy to grow, in terms of the home conditions.
So, for an indoor plant, it really is a great plant. If you've ever heard of shade-grown
coffee, that is where coffee is grown under the understory of large trees, and
it tolerates the lower light. So, that's a key in terms of our ability to grow this
very well in a home situation, where light levels may not be quite adequate.
It also can be grown in full Sun, too. The other thing about coffee is, it's quite
tolerant to temperatures. We've grown it in some of our colder houses. It will not take
it below freezing; but, it certainly can take it down to the forties at night on
a consistent basis, and the plants will still be fine, and grow well.
The flowering cycle on it, generally, for us, is the springtime. And, you can see, here, the
plants are just coming into bud. You can see the young buds forming at the leaf axis.
This is also a point where the fruit is starting to ripen.
These are called "cherries." They're the yellow beans that are harvested. You can see
here's a-- I'll pick one off, here-- There's one that's ripe and ready to go. There's a
green one, that came out of a later flowering cycle;
will ripen,
probably, during the summertime; it's still pretty small. So, they can put out several
crops a year. Generally, our coffees here
go into one huge flush. This, within the next, oh, probably couple weeks, will be
in full bloom. And, the flowers are white; they're intensely fragrant. It's a beautiful thing to
have in bloom, in the house, when they're in flower. And, we can look at these coffee
beans, here, which actually have a pulp around the inside of them. Once
you pull the skin off, there's a sweet pulp that, if you taste it, it actually has a
sweetness to it. And then, the inside there are two--
dropped one, but here are the two beans that would make our coffee bean. And that
certainly looks like the brown, or the roasted coffee bean.
There's a husk on the outside of that has to be removed before the coffee bean
can be roasted, and then ground for our drink.
So, in growing coffee, in terms of its culture, you want to have a place that
probably gets some direct sunlight. Although they can grow under lower light,
they'll do best if they get direct sunlight. As a rule of thumb,
you always want to bring the soil to dryness between waterings. They do
tolerate some dryness, but severe dryness can harm them, as it does with many
plants. We grow them in a standard potting mix, which is our peat lite
mixes, and they do pretty well with that. There is a small amount of problems, at
times, with some chlorosis in the winter time, on the young growth. That's
inter-veinal lightening on the young growth; but generally, that recovers as
the warmth comes up in summertime, and longer days arrive.
And you want to fertilize your coffee plant.
Not so much in the winter time, especially if you're in a house under lower
light, but in the summertime-- if you put it outside, or the light level increases
in the window that you've got, you want to start a regular fertilizing program with it.
Generally, we do use a liquid feed, or granular organic, which is top-dressed or
you irrigate with it. And do it regularly. Too much is obviously not a
good thing; but regularly, so the plant is constantly growing.
As far as insects and disease goes,
they are susceptible to mealybug. That's probably the most prominent thing that
we see on them. And they can get scale insects, if scale insects are in the
vicinity where they can make contact, and move on to the plant.
Thank you for watching today. There's a little bit of information on how to grow
coffee. And for those that are adventurous,
you can grow your own coffee beans, roast them, and make your own cup of joe.
Cheers!