The Wild Drink Blog

I was wandering around the ‘humid tropics’ dome at Eden Project last weekend when I noticed these little devils…

For anyone not sure, those are coffee bushes, each ‘bean’ is one half of a pair of beans which sits inside a red (when ripe) cherry which in turn hang off these bushes. Anyway, it got me thinking about a few things.Firstly, will Eden let me have some cherries to roast? Don’t know, but it has to be worth asking and it leads on to a few other questions: Are the plants a variety that can be used to make coffee (Arabica, Robusta or Liberica)? If I remember rightly there are some species of the plant that are unsuitable or don’t produce cherries. Am I going to be able to process & roast them? With a little help it should be possible. Will it be worth it? Will the coffee taste any good? Who knows but it has to be worth a try! Has anyone ever made coffee from plants grown in UK before?

(excuse the terrible pictures, I was being rushed not to mention the fact that the humid tropics are rather humid and my lens required wiping every 10 seconds!)Unfortunately there was no one to speak to about them at the time, but I will be getting in touch with Eden soon. The cherries looked a fairly decent size, they normally take about 9 months to grow and ripen, i’d say that most of these only have a month or so left to go but this presents another problem: The berries on coffee bushes ripen all the time and at different speeds so with such a small crop I would need to harvest at the right time for a good yield.If anyone has any comments, suggestion or advice on this topic please let me know. I’d rather not do it at all than make a botched attempt so any help is appreciated!