Most of coffee consumption around the world today is of two species of coffee: about 70 % arabica (Coffea arabica) and 30% robusta (Coffea canephora). Some people might mistakenly think that coffee originated in the Arabian peninsula, perhaps because of the name?
We wanted to know, if arabica coffee originated in Africa (it’s generally accepted that it was first born in southwestern Ethiopia), why is this species called Coffea arabica, as opposed to Coffea afrika? Or Coffea ethiopica?
We looked to who gave this species its name. Coffea arabica was initially named by a French physician and botanist Antoine de Jussieu as Jasminum arabicum, and then Linnaeus donned the genus with the name Coffea and from there on the “scientific” name was Coffea arabica. Prior to that, arabica coffee had other names. For example it was called kahwa in the Arab world, and bunn in Ethiopia. If the good doctor de Jussieu were alive today we’d like to ask him why he chose this name.
Beyond the name we now know and are familiar with today to identify this species (as determined by a European physician), we wanted to know, when did arabica coffee come about and how did it evolve? We looked into the evolution and family tree of Coffea arabica. It appears that Coffea arabica was born of a hybridization between Coffea canephora and Coffea eugenoides. It is thought that this happened in what is now southwestern Ethiopia, estimated about 10,000-20,000 years ago.
What does this have to do with coffee in Congo? Well both parents of arabica coffee, Coffea eugenoides and Coffea canephora, are found in forests in DRC.
Coffea canephora was “discovered” by the Western world in Congo and continues to be cultivated here. In fact, more Coffea species continue to be identified by scientists in Congo today, though most of these have been known for generations by people in nearby villages.
What we noted was that in phylogenetic trees for coffee, we saw that listed right next to Coffea eugenoides was a species called Coffea kivuensis.
Kivuensis sounds a lot like kivu so we wondered, is this a plant native to modern day Kivu? Is this auntie to arabica native to Kivu?
We turned to expert botanist Ithe Mwanga Mwanga in South Kivu, DRC. During field research in Kahuzi Biega National Park back in 2010, Ithe noted some wild coffee trees that looked very similar to arabica. In 2016 genetic analysis on his samples, done in Belgium, identified this species as Coffea kivuensis. This species, an auntie to arabica, was actually first identified in 1932 by John Lebrun, a Belgian botanist and secretary general of a former Belgian colonial agronomy institute. He (or his team) found it not far from where it was found by Ithe a decade ago. However, Coffea kivuensis was not cultivated and seems to have been lost from the world of research after the 1930s.
Until Ithe noted it in the park. And today he is growing Coffea kivuensis for the first time outside the forest to study it.
We spent a fascinating day with our kids in the cool mountain mist visiting the site where Ithe is caring for these trees.
As coffee trees can take years to mature and produce cherries, he has yet to see the full potential of Coffea kivuensis. Some of the trees are now 2-3 years old and starting to produce. Branches are not packed full of cherries like arabica’s but reportedly the taste is very similar. In fact, there are some villages where people drink coffee made from wild Coffea kivuensis trees in the forest.
Ithe listed off of the names of several Coffea species that grow wild in the forests of South Kivu, told us their distinguishing features, and showed us the dried specimens of many of them, stored in a large filing cabinet. Some are distinct in their leaves, some in their flowers, some in their cherries.
Our kids had a literal field day marvelling over the dried and pressed specimens and playing amidst the kivuensis seedlings growing.
One thing is for sure: the scientific community has yet to identify all of the species growing in Congo’s forests. Who knows what our next generation will uncover, but scientists like Ithe are paving the way for them, while illuminating the ancestry of the world’s beloved drink.
