This is Actually an Arabica Variety?! Polysperma Multi-seed Coffee Beans Explained

When you first saw the cover image and title, did you think it was a joke! Doesn't a coffee cherry only have 1-2 coffee beans? Didn't all the previous articles say that!!!

Yes... that's right... According to normal coffee cherries, one coffee cherry contains two coffee beans, which are the seed part of the coffee fruit. Due to the size limitations of the fruit restricting the growth space for the coffee beans, the two beans grow face-to-face together. Therefore, the coffee beans we commonly see have one flat side and one curved side, and such coffee beans are called flat beans.

But sometimes, due to pests, environmental factors, or genetic mutations during the growth of coffee cherries, only one of the two coffee beans develops. The developing bean, with its companion making space, eventually forms an oval-shaped peaberry (PB). Generally, the occurrence rate of peaberries is not high, commonly found on some coffee trees that have just reached fruit-bearing age, accounting for 5-10% of the entire tree's yield.

When I first started learning about coffee knowledge, I thought peaberries were already quite novel (I was just starting out back then!) It wasn't until this year when I manually peeled the coffee cherries harvested from in front of my own coffee shop and processed them into extremely small batches of honey-processed coffee beans, that I discovered some coffee cherries contained 3 coffee beans... The shape of the beans was like orange segments.

"Um... I only remembered to take photos after peeling them all..."

Perhaps it was because I usually forgot to water them and rarely loosened the soil or applied fertilizer, resulting in uneven quality of fruits produced by one tree... It could also be Guangzhou's unusual climate that made the growing coffee cherries "withdraw into themselves"... Or perhaps it was genetic mutation that caused the coffee beans to form in such an "imposing" way.

And the coffee cherry in the article's cover containing 7 coffee beans actually seems quite reasonable! After all, when plants undergo their own genetic mutations, how could humans possibly predict it! Moreover, compared to the random three-segment coffee beans in my hand, these seven-segment coffee beans have been specifically researched and cultivated by dedicated researchers, and they even have an exclusive name—Café Polysperma, also known as Seven Bean Arabica.

Origin and Research

From the name, we can see that the Polysperma coffee variety carries Arabica genes and is a mutant variety of Typica. As for where it was first discovered, there seems to be no definitive information about its discovery location... According to currently available records, Polysperma coffee was first documented in 1890, but it might not necessarily have been seven-seeded—it could have been more.

What is certain is that the seven-seeded variety coffee trees were introduced and cultivated for research and conservation through a joint project between the EPAMIG Germplasm Bank and the Cerrado Mineiro Coffee Producers Association in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Since 2005, this germplasm bank has successively introduced over 40 varieties of Polysperma gene coffee trees for cultivation and research. According to some research findings, although Polysperma gene variety coffee has poor flavor, it has good leaf rust resistance, so coffee research institutes in other regions have also introduced Polysperma gene varieties for coffee variety improvement research.

"Like horse hooves (water chestnuts) growing on trees!"

Unique Characteristics

With such large fruits, the flowers of Polysperma coffee trees are naturally extraordinary! From the images, we can see that common coffee flowers we typically see have 5 petals, while Polysperma coffee variety flowers have as many as 10 petals! (The Polysperma one)

According to the Caferium website, these Polysperma coffee tree flowers bloom in rose-like clusters among the new leaves at the top of the tree. The calyx part has more than 5 lobes, while the corolla forms two whorls, with each whorl having 6-10 petals.

So what do such large coffee cherries taste like? ("How big are they?") Don't worry, I remember putting comparison images! Alright, I almost forgot!

When there are more coffee beans in one fruit, nutrients naturally become diluted, so the coffee flavor is not ideal, which is why it hasn't been cultivated on a large scale. However, its leaf rust resistance genes make it worth preserving the variety for genetic and gene improvement research.

"These aren't garlic cloves!! The size of multi-segment coffee beans is also quite large!"

Because it's not a complete coffee variety, there aren't many documented records about Polysperma coffee. This article can only give everyone a superficial understanding of more trivia about coffee and the mysteries of nature.

My colleague: "If you take a sip, will you turn into a Calabash Brother?"

Image source: Internet, Soul-painting writer

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