What Everybody Needs to Know About Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage prepared from the roasted seeds of several species of an evergreen shrub of the genus Coffea.

The two most common sources of coffee beans are the highly regarded Coffea arabica, and the “robusta” form of the hardier Coffea canephora. The latter is resistant to the coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), but has a more bitter taste. Coffee plants are cultivated in more than 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Once ripe, coffee “berries” are picked, processed, and dried to yield the