Excitement on lost and found species of coffee

A Rare West African Coffee

Several articles published internationally this year, reported on the rediscovery of a species of coffee called Coffea stenophylla. The most recent one that I read was contained in the Global Coffee Report magazine, July/August 2021 edition (https://gcrmag.com/could-the-rediscovered-coffee-species-coffea-stenophylla-be-the-next-arabica/ ). Do note however, that the headline photo with the flower in the Global Coffee Report article is the species Coffea affinis and not C. stenophylla as stated in that photo’s caption.

 

Photo 1

Photo 1. Coffea stenophylla in fruit at the Centre National de Recherche Agronomique, Ivory Coast. Image by Charles Denison from Davis et al: Lost and Found: Coffea stenophylla and C. affinis, the Forgotten Coffee Crop Species of West Africa (2020).

 

C. stenophylla apparently originated in West Africa and it was also cultivated since the 1800s in Sierra Leone, but was replaced by arabica and robusta varieties when these were later promoted as better commercial crops. No domestic cultivation of that variety exists today and its status is not well known. 

C. stenophylla is claimed as having a taste similar to good arabica but shows tolerance to higher temperatures, even some drought tolerance and has resistance to common coffee diseases found in South America. What is interesting to me in the Global Coffee Report article, is the statement included from a report by J.H. Hart, the superintendent of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad, in 1898 that described the flavour of C. stenophylla as “excellent, and equal to the finest Coffea arabica”. Actually, in the original document cited, J.H. Hart’s words were quite a bit different. 

 

In his Annual Report of the Superintendent Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad for year 1898 (Council Paper No. 23 of 1899), J.H. Hart wrote: 

 

“The trees of the new coffee (Coffea stenophylla) have again borne excellent crops for the second season. The seed has been much in demand, but I am sorry to say our local planters have not yet taken any general interest, and most of our crop has gone abroad. The tree bears a small purple berry of the Moka type and the flavour of the coffee is excellent.”

There is a copy of a photograph taken around 1900 in that Royal Botanic Gardens with a C. stenophylla tree about 2 metres tall, referenced in a scholarly article published in 2020 (see: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00616/full). 

Photo 2

Photo 2. Coffea stenophylla cultivated in the Trinidad Botanical Garden, with Demerara sugarcanes. Photograph taken around 1900. Image from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as cited in Davis et al: Lost and Found: Coffea stenophylla and C. affinis, the Forgotten Coffee Crop Species of West Africa (2020).

 

Other coffee selections

Other types of coffee grown in Trinidad at that time briefly reported by Hart were:

 

 “Maragogipe coffee or Brazilian coffee - a variety of Coffea arabica has produced a large crop of beans for the first time, a fine coffee of vigorous habit and has a much larger leaf than ordinary C. arabica with beans of nearly double the size.

 

Abbeokuta coffee – a coffee of the Liberian type and resembles it in vegetative characters. It was found in the district of Abbeokuta on the way to the interior from Lagos, west coast of Africa. A small patch has been planted for trial in St Clair.

 

Congo coffee – a coffee similar in appearance to the last and was received from Kew under this name. It is said to be a valuable kind but the plants are yet too small to indicate what type or character they will finally assume. They are growing well.

 

Minerva coffee – for some years we have had under cultivation a variety of C. arabica which has hitherto been called ‘narrow leaved’. This has now proved itself to be a very early fruiting and prolific variety and has been named ‘Minerva coffee’ for convenience of nomenclature. The beans are of large size and possess a very fine flavour.

 

Mexican coffee – this is another of the interesting introductions which are always being received from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. It is a variety of C. arabica and has proved itself to be a very prolific variety and one possessing a strong constitution.

 

Golden drop coffee – this is a varietal received in exchange, but about which we have received no definite information. It is evidently a variety of C. arabica. It will be tried on the new grounds at St Clair.”

 

Hart further noted in 1899 that: “The culture of coffee in Trinidad is certainly extending, somewhat slowly it is true, but still extending. The Botanical Department has sold large numbers of plants at four for a penny, which should be cheap enough to encourage planting.” 

 

So, the mission now, is for me to try and find any C. stenophylla still alive and well in Trinidad. Not likely an easy task, certainly a worthwhile adventure!

 

Why is Trinidad coffee so special?

Coffee has been here for a long time

The twin island state of Trinidad and Tobago is located in the southern Caribbean just off the coast of South America. The islands are positioned to benefit from the unique microclimates created by the influence of the South American continent and the prevailing Caribbean trade winds.

Vegetation here is lush and bountiful. So, when Coffee plants were introduced into Trinidad by early European colonists in the late 1700s the plantations flourished. The synergy of the tropical island climate in combination with the rich clay soils benefitted the coffee produced with rich and complex flavours. 

Driven by the increased demand for this exotic coffee, further expansion in coffee plantations was fueled during the late 1800s. With the growth in the local industry several desirable coffee varieties were introduced to the islands and incorporated into the blends.

Coffee variety grown in Trinidad

Another coffee variety grown in Trinidad

A rare coffee variety found in Trinidad

Today, those blends of coffee varieties can be found in different locations in the country, and have given rise to an extremely robust, full body and complex profile that include flavours with hints of cocoa/chocolate, spices and nuts, combined with floral and fruity notes.

 

No other coffee produced elsewhere in the world, has the superior taste of Trinidad coffee!

Café Vega coffee

Café Vega is the brand of artisan coffee produced by the Multicrop Facility Ltd…a small family-owned operation in central Trinidad. From harvesting to drying to hulling and roasting; the traditional principles and practices of our grandparents were utilised and enhanced with modern science and technology. This ensures that only the highest quality, specially hand selected beans from superior flavour varieties of Trinidad grown coffee are used. Experience the difference…try a cup of Café Vega coffee today!

How did coffee get into Trinidad?

It all started with the French...

Jardin des Plantes in Paris (Wikipedia)

 The French received their first coffee plant as a gift in 1713 via the Dutch. This was kept at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where presumably it produced fruit and thereafter many plants. In 1723 a coffee plant was taken to the French colony of Martinique in the West Indies by a French naval officer Gabriel de Clieu. That led to the development of a coffee industry which became the leading cash crop for the island and later spread to all of the French territories in the West Indies (The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers published in 2018 by Penguin Random House, UK).

...encouraged by the Spanish

 In 1783, the Spanish government of Trinidad passed an edict titled “The Cedula of Population” to encourage immigration to Trinidad. Persons of either gender and of the Roman Catholic faith who would swear loyalty to the Spanish Crown were to receive land allotments in sizes depending on their race and heritage. 

Thatched cottages on a cocoa/coffee
estate in Trinidad.
MJ Cazabon, 1813-1888.

 
French planters with their slaves, free persons of colour and mulattos from neighbouring islands of Grenada, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Dominica migrated to Trinidad during the French Revolution. The Spanish also gave many incentives to lure settlers to the island, including exemption from taxes for ten years and land grants in accordance to the terms as prescribed in the Cedula. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedula_of_Population ). It is likely that the French planters brought coffee plants to Trinidad during their settlement on the island from 1783 where they subsequently established sugar, cotton and coffee plantations. 

 The demise of coffee plantations in the French Caribbean islands following the French Revolution and the exodus of the French Catholic planters, likely encouraged the Spanish to initiate coffee production in Venezuela, which was further supported by the free trade edict of Charles III in Madrid in 1778. In 1784, the first coffee plantation was established in Chacao, about 5 km from Caracas in Venezuela by Don Bartholomeo Blandin. 

Promoted by the British...

 In 1797, after the defeat of the Spanish by the British, Trinidad subsequently came under British crown colony administration from 1805. However in 1799, prior to its formal incorporation into the crown, the British government sought to increase agricultural production in the colony, promulgating the order that: “there may be formed on its territory 1,313 sugar, 945 coffee, 304 cocoa, and 158 cotton plantations of 100 squares or 320 English acres each.” (Statistical, Commercial and Political Description of Venezuela, Trinidad, Margarita and Tobago. From the French of D. Lavayasse. Publisher G. & W.B. Whittaker, 1820. London). 

New plant material

Arabica coffee plant

 In 1875-1878, ‘Arabian and Liberian’ coffee plants were introduced by the Government Botanist at the Botanic Garden in St Ann’s, Trinidad. He described the following 6 varieties (mostly Arabica) which were grown and made available to the planters to expand coffee production: Hybrid Moka, Creole, Menuda, Moka, the Narrow Leaf and Liberian (Trinidad Royal Gazette.  28th August, 1878). Plants were subsequently distributed initially, to planters in the Maraval and St Ann’s valleys. 

In the early 1900s, Trinidad still served as a port for transhipment of goods coming from the Orinoco region of Venezuela, facilitated by the large and influential Spanish population of the island. The Collector of Customs for Trinidad (R.H. McCarthy at that time), indicated that in 1901, trade with Venezuela involved mainly goods shipped from Ciudad Bolivar to Port of Spain; including among other things, 128,000 kilos of coffee and 38,000 kilos of cocoa (The Book of Trinidad, pages 77-81. Edited by T.B. Jackson. Muir, Marshall and Company, 1904. Trinidad).

Robusta coffee plant

Very little information is accessible on the introduction of Robusta coffee into Trinidad. Some mention is made in the ‘Fortnightly Review of the Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies Vol. II; No. 29. (1903)’ of luxuriant growth, Congo Coffee (Coffea robusta as it was then called) planted at the Experiment Station, St. Clair in Trinidad. As late as 1927 the chief species grown was Coffea arabica, but since then, Coffea robusta had become the most widely cultivated coffee species although it was only introduced to Trinidad in 1901 according to W.G. Mathewson in his 1951 survey of coffee cultivation in Trinidad (Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture).

Exports in the old days

In the 1920s, coffee exports from Trinidad ranged from about 497,000 lbs to over 818,000 lbs (Coffee in Trinidad accompanied by a description of the coffee on the college farm. J.E. Mills, 1930. ICTA). In 1951, the annual production of coffee in Trinidad was claimed as three million lbs with about two million lbs being exported (A survey of coffee cultivation in Trinidad. W.G. Mathewson, 1951. ICTA). However, it is not known how much of those exported coffee were actually coffee transhipped from the Orinoco region of Venezuela. Sadly, unroasted coffee bean exports from Trinidad had ceased at least a decade or more now, as production was not considered profitable and many coffee estates were converted to other uses or other types of crop production over the past 20 years.

Rising from the ashes…a possibility

The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture c.1923

From the published dissertations of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) which was located in St. Augustine, Trinidad there is evidence of several research projects on coffee in Trinidad from the 1930s to the 1950s. Records at the Central Experimental Station, Centeno, Trinidad and the former Caroni Research Station at Waterloo in Trinidad, indicated that there was a resurgence in coffee experimentation during the 1980s-1990s. Regrettably, there is little if any, research or development related to coffee production in Trinidad and Tobago over the past 20 years.

However, there has been an emergence of new, small scale coffee roasters in the country over the past five years or so (micro or nano roasters). The demand for local coffee has also been increasing and local supplies cannot currently sustain such a demand. A plan for the future of coffee in Trinidad has recently been slowly evolving, despite the lack of interest shown by the Ministry responsible for agriculture…stay tuned for further developments!

Some Key Historical Milestones in Coffee

Origins of Coffee

 

Almost everyone who is into coffee knows the story of the Ethiopian shepherd named Khaldi whose goats became hyper-active one night after eating coffee cherries from a bush growing near to them…and so the story goes, was how coffee was discovered. In a recent publication by Ferreira et al: Introduction to Coffee Plant and Genetics, in Coffee: Production, Quality and Chemistry, 2019, pp. 1-25 DOI: 10.1039/9781782622437-00001; the following paragraph summarises the origin of the key commercially utilised coffee species.

 

Coffea arabica (arabica coffee) species has its primary centre of diversity in the southwestern Ethiopian highlands (in altitudes between 1000 and 2000 metres), the Boma Plateau of Sudan and Mount Marsabit of Kenya. Coffea canephora (robusta coffee) has colonized various regions in Central Africa, stretching from West Africa through Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and northern Tanzania down to northern Angola. In general, Coffea liberica (Liberia coffee or balata coffee as it is called here in Trinidad) habitats are localized to the same regions where Coffea canephora grow.

 

Export and Theft

 

An interesting account of the history of the spread of coffee cultivation and its use is contained in the true story of a young Yemeni American man who struggles and eventually brings Yemeni coffee to commercial outlets in the USA. The book of this account written by Dave Eggers, is called The Monk of Mokha and was published in 2018 by Penguin Random House, UK. The following paragraphs are extracted from that book and summarise how coffee got out of Yemen and was established in other countries around the world.

 

Before the 1500s –Yemen was the home to the first arabica coffee cultivation and organized coffee trade with other countries. Coffee was apparently grown there for centuries. Ali Ibn Omar al-Shadhili, a Sufi holy man living in Mokha (a port city in southwestern Yemen) who first brewed the coffee bean into a semblance of what we now recognize as coffee…then known as qahwa. He and his fellow Sufi monks used the beverage in their ceremonies celebrating god, which lasted long into the night. They brought coffee to all other in North Africa and the Middle East. The Turks turned qahwa into kahve, which became in other languages coffee.

 

Al-Shadhili became known as the Monk of Mokha and Mokha became the primary point of departure for all the coffee grown in Yemen and destined for faraway markets. However, exporting coffee plants or coffee cherries was a crime. Men had been arrested and executed for the high treason of trying to leave port with a coffee seedling.

 

1500s - Bada Budan was a Muslim holy man from the Chikmagalur district of Karnataka, India in the 1500s went to Mecca to perform the hajj. On the way back travelling through Yemen, he encountered coffee, by then known as the ‘wine of Islam’. He was not permitted to bring back the cherries or unroasted beans or plants to India, but could get as much roasted beans as he wanted. So, he stole them…strapping 7 cherries to his belly and wrapped his robe loosely over them. In India he planted the seeds in the Chandragiri Hills and from those, millions of arabica plants eventually flourished. India was the 6^th largest producer of coffee in the world in 2018.

 

1600s – Coffee had first come to Europe in 1615, when it was first exported from Mokha to Venice and used initially for medicinal purposes, until wider social consumption increased its popularity throughout Europe. The trade in coffee was controlled by the Venetians, but the Dutch wanted their own control of coffee. In 1616 a Dutchman named Pieter van den Broecke was able to steal seedlings from the port city of Mokha in southwest of Yemen, while working for the Dutch East India Company. These seedlings were sent to the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, Holland. Plants from these were sent to the Dutch colony of Ceylon in 1658 and later to Java where it thrived. Java soon became the primary supplier of coffee to Europe and Mokha’s primacy waned. Coffee was also introduced as a beverage to the colonies in North America by the Dutch in the 1600s.

 

1700s – The mayor of Amsterdam presented the French King Louis XIV with a coffee plant in 1713 as a gift. It was kept at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. In 1723 a coffee plant was taken to the French colony of Martinique in the West Indies by a French naval officer Gabriel de Clieu. That led to the development of a coffee industry that became the leading cash crop for the island and later spread to all of the French territories in the West Indies. In 1727 a Portuguese army officer Francisco de Melo Palheta based in Brazil was sent to Cayenne (French Guiana) to broker a border dispute between the French Guiana and Dutch Guiana. He was able to ‘convince’ the Governor’s wife Marie-Claude de Vicq de Pontgibaud to help him smuggle some coffee cherries out of the country. These cherries were first planted in the Para region of Brazil and by 1840 Brazilian coffee accounted for 40% of the world’s production.

 

First coffee plants in Trinidad

 

…soon to follow this post, so stay tuned!

 

 

Coffee Crop 2021

Coffee Harvests

Ripe Robusta coffee berries ready for harvesting

Well, it’s that time of year again…the coffee harvests. The crop seems to have been ready for picking a little later than last year, but the volume of berries harvested from the end of January to the end of February 2021 was certainly much greater than last year and from the same suppliers. The picking of coffee is expected to continue until the end of March or mid April 2021.

Coffee berries in racks in the drying shed

Flowering

Three periods of flowering of the coffee trees were observed; one in late January, another in mid February and the other in early March. There seemed to be more abundant flowers in March, including from the two-year old arabicas. This last flowering period occurred after a couple of days of rainfall…unusual for this time of the year…our dry season. Although the dry season normally starts in January, there was much rain during that month; February was mainly dry and we are getting some rain again during the second week of March. The dry season ends in May. 

Robusta coffee in flower

Close-up to the coffee flower

La Niña

This unusual rainy incident may be as a consequence of the El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation. We are apparently in a La Niña year where it peaked in October-November 2020 as a moderate strength event. There is a 65% likelihood that it will persist during February-April as it impacts on temperatures, precipitation and storm patterns. Despite the general cooling influence of La Niña events, land temperatures are expected to be above-normal for most parts of the globe in February-April 2021 (https://reliefweb.int/report/world/wmo-el-ni-ola-ni-update-january-2021).

New Varieties

Purple berry...

A few varieties new to me, were also seen during my annual exploration of old coffee estates in the northern part of the country. Some of these estates are in the process of rehabilitation. Samples of these varieties were obtained for processing and roasting to determine flavour and acceptance among my coffee tasting panel.

Next

Look out for a new Café Vega product in my next post. In the meantime, you can look up “hashara” on the internet!