Coffea arabica, growing in Vilcabamba, Loja Province.  Coffee is native to Africa, but propagated throughout the tropics; it is a medium-sized shrub or small tree depending on pruning.  Coffee trees begin to bloom and fruit at about 3 years of age, and continue to fruit for quite a long time; the oldest known coffee plants are well past 100 years and still going strong.  Coffee is easy to propagate from seed, tolerates heavy pruning, and is receptive to grafting.  However, it will not survive even a touch of frost, and prefers higher elevations that can provide the heat it requires; this limits its commercial growth to its native range, and to the higher elevations of the new-world tropics.  The plant requires high volumes of water, and prefers a pH neutral soil that is rich in minerals and nutrients.

In Ecuador, Coffee is grown extensively in the provinces of Loja and Zamora-Chinchipe, and to a lesser extend in El Oro and the lowland provinces.  The very best Coffee in Ecuador is considered to come from the valleys of Vilcabamba and Malacatos, which are just south of the city of Loja, and are situated at about 1800 meters of elevation.  Both valleys are hot, with Malacatos being the moister of the two.  However, Vilcabamba specializes in shade-grown varieties and often mixed plantations with cacao, while its neighbour monocultures the beans in full sun; this produces widely different flavours of coffee.  Shade-grown beans tend to have a sweeter, fuller taste and aroma, while full-sun beans often taste somewhat burnt.  In addition, coffees grown in companionship with other fruits will tend to take on some of the flavour aspects of those fruits.  The other reason for the flavour differences between the two valleys lies in the processing of the beans; Vilcabamba naturally sun-dries their beans, while Malacatos allows the full cherry to dry (see the following paragraph for proper coffee processing) and then lights the chaff on fire in order to dry and roast the beans at the same time.  This produces a definitive, smoky aftertaste.

Coffee is produced in a fairly laborious manner; first the ripe red berries, called cherries, are harvested from the plants; this is normally done by hand, as not all cherries will come ripe at the same time.  These are then split to remove the mucilage covered beans, which at this stage of the process are white.  These beans are retted (allowed to ferment slightly) in order to remove the mucliage, and the resultant naked beans are set out on large concrete pads to dry in the sun.  The drying process takes about 5 to 7 days, depending on available sunlight, at the end of which they are a deep brown colour.  The beans are then roasted to concentrate their volatile oils.

The main active ingredient in Coffee is caffeine, although it also contains a number of other alkaloids and antioxidants; in moderate doses, coffee can be used medicinally as a preventative for a number of nervous diseases including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s syndromes.  Caffiene, of course, also has its negative side-effects, as anyone who has ever experienced the java jim-jams from overconsumption can attest.