The smooth morning coffee that you can’t really start your day without, is not any ordinary cup anymore! In a recent study revealed by Nature Genetics, the genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveals that your favourite arabica coffee was traced to have been developed 600,000 to a million years back.
The abstract states, “Coffea arabica, an allotetraploid hybrid of Coffea eugenioides and Coffea canephora, is the source of approximately 60 per cent of coffee products worldwide, and its cultivated accessions have undergone several population bottlenecks. We present chromosome-level assemblies of a di-haploid C. arabica accession and modern representatives of its diploid progenitors, C. eugenioides and C. canephora. The three species exhibit largely conserved genome structures between diploid parents and descendant subgenomes, with no obvious global subgenome dominance. We find evidence for a founding polyploidy event 350,000–610,000 years ago, followed by several pre-domestication bottlenecks, resulting in narrow genetic variation. A split between wild accessions and cultivar progenitors occurred ~30.5 thousand years ago, followed by a period of migration between the two populations.”
With an estimated production of 10 million metric tons per year, coffee is one of the most traded commodities in the world. The most broadly appreciated coffee is produced from the allotetraploid species Coffea arabica, especially from cultivars belonging to the Bourbon or Typica lineages and their hybrids.
The researchers, hoping to learn more about the plants to better protect them from pests and climate change, found that the species emerged around 600,000 years ago through natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species. These wild coffee plants are said to have originated in Ethiopia but are thought to have been first roasted and brewed primarily in Yemen starting in the 1400s.
In the 1600s, Indian monk Baba Budan is fabled to have smuggled seven raw coffee beans back to his homeland from Yemen, laying the foundation for coffee’s global takeover.
Coffea arabica accounts for 60 per cent of the world's coffee production. Popular for its exceptional taste and quality, Arabica coffee is mostly grown in high altitudes in regions with a tropical climate like Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. This type of coffee has a smoother, sweeter, and a more nuanced flavour than other coffee types, with notes of nuts, chocolate, fruit, and caramel. The care taken in cultivation and processing results in high quality, thus making them highly sought-after coffee beans. Arabica has a higher content of sugar but is lower on caffeine as compared to Robusta.
Have it hot or make an iced coffee.
Make cold brews at home.
Tweak it a bit to make flavoured ice coffees like a mocha, or latte. Add hazelnut, cinnamon or caramel syrups to amp it up even more.
Add a dash of coffee to your hot or cold chocolate/cocoa for a rich, enhanced flavour.
Beat the heat by replacing regular water with coconut water and have it chilled by mixing it with an arabica espresso shot.
According to a few researches, Arabica beans can help lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and also help prevent diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s. Arabica beans are also rich in plant-based antioxidants and phytonutrients which have anti-inflammatory effects. They also contain vitamin E, vitamin B, magnesium, potassium and some more healthy vitamins and minerals. The beans are also said to be a good source of hydration and electrolytes when had with water rather than milk.
Quite interestingly, Arabica coffee is self-pollinating. This particular variant of coffee plants reproduce by using their own pollen, not that of other plants, which means the same genes are passed down from generation to generation. Through the generations, this trait can assist improve the quality of Arabica coffee beans.
