Coffee

Parts Usually Used

Beans

Description of Plant(s) and Culture

Coffee is an evergreen, large shrub to small tree, 15-40 feet tall, usually pruned down to a small to medium shrub. It has 6 inch long glossy dark green leaves, pure white corolla-type flowers, and round deep red fruit. Often grown as a houseplant, needs full sun. Zone 10. Fresh coffee seed, keep warm and wet, germinates well and grows quickly. Start seeds singly in small pots in fall or winter, in slightly acid soil.

Grow in filtered sun or light shade, at moderate (65-80 degrees F) temperature. Keep somewhat moist in spring and summer, slightly dryer, but never completely dry, in fall and winter. Maintain humidity, and apply a balanced fertilizer regularly in spring and summer. Tope pruning is often needed to control the height. Coffee bushes are not hard to grow and are quite disease and insect resistant.

A really attractive plant needs close attention to temperature, light and watering. Brown leaf edges are usually the result of fertilizer burn; too high a temperature caused by too much sun, causes burned spots. Coffee bushes attract mealybugs. People grow coffee bushes, not to supply the caffeine needs of the household, but as attractive potted plants with glossy green leaves, fragrant flowers, and red berries.

Where Found

Native to tropical Africa and Ethiopia. In the United States coffee is grown outdoors in the deep south; summer mulch helps. Grown as a potted houseplant. Easily withstands low light in northern greenhouse winters.

Medicinal Properties

Vasodilator, stimulant

Legends, Myths and Stories

These coffee substitutes were originally taken from A Cyclopaedia of Practical Recipes, by Arnold J. Cooley, London, 1856. They were used alone or mixed with real coffee. If larger than regular coffee-berries, they are cut into dice about the same size as coffee-berries before roasting. All of the suggestions below are roasted before grinding, with a little fat or peanut oil. Acorn coffee: from acorns, shelled, husked, dried, and roasted.

Almond coffee: rye or wheat roasted along with a few almonds; a very small amount of cassia buds improves it. (A good stimulant) Bean coffee: Horse-beans roasted along with a little honey or sugar. Add a small amount of cassia buds. Also called Jack bean, Canavalia ensiformis. Beech-mast coffee: from beech-masts or nuts. (very wholesome) Beet-root coffee: from the yellow beet-root, sliced, dried in kiln or oven, and ground with a little foreign coffee.

(a good substitute) Currant coffee: from the seeds washed out of the cask left in making currant wine. Dandelion coffee: the roasted root, in England, was a popular substitute. It is prepared like coffee. (roasted dandelion root has almost a magic-like effect on milk. The resultant liquid tastes like rich cream, of course with far less calories. Try this on breakfast cereals, you will love it.

Also, try dandelion milk in your favorite recipes where milk is an ingredient. ) Egyptian coffee: from chick-peas; called garbanzos by the Spanish. German coffee: from roasted roots of chicory. Gooseberry coffee: from gooseberry seeds. Luppin coffee : from roasted lupine seeds. Rice coffee: from roasted rice. Rye coffee: Rye roasted along with a little butter, and ground to powder.

(a good substitute) Rosetta coffee: from fenugreek seeds moistened with lemon juice. Sylvester’s coffee: Iris coffee; The seed of the gladiolus luteus, Iris pseudacornus, or yellow water flag. Said to be the best substitute known. Turner’s coffee: broom coffee. from broom seeds roasted with a little butter.

Uses

Historical herbalists and practitioners suggested coffee for throbbing headaches and migraines, under the belief that it acted to constrict blood vessels. In cases involving severe attacks accompanied by nausea, historical sources sometimes recommended administering cooled coffee as an enema. Traditional writings also proposed that coffee sweetened with honey could be consumed at bedtime to address sleep disturbances thought to stem from low blood pressure or reduced cerebral blood flow.

In Arabic traditions, coffee was freshly roasted, ground, and boiled immediately before serving with sugar, a method historical observers believed altered its stimulating qualities.

Bibliography

Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants , by Steven Foster and James A. , Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000 The Healing Plants , by Mannfried Pahlow, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. , Loma Linda, CA 92354, Original copyright 1939, revised edition 1994 The Herb Book , by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974. , Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition Indian Herbalogy of North America , by Alma R.

, Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, 1973 Indian Uses of Native Plants , by Edith Van Allen Murphey, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1958, print 1990 The Magic of Herbs in Daily Living , by Richard Lucas, Parker Publishing Co. (1988). The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine , by Dr.

A. , 27 Pine Street (Box 876) New Canaan, CT. 06840-0876. Copyright Verlag A. , Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. , 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023