Coffee

Coffea arabica

Rubiaceae

The cherry that runs the morning — a highland shrub whose roasted seed is the world’s most popular bitter.

Culinary roasted seed. Unroasted green coffee extracts are a different, stronger stimulant product.

Parts used: Roasted seed
Traditional notes: Wakefulness · After a heavy meal · Kitchen drink
Grow · USDA 6b: Tropical shrub, USDA 10–11; bright houseplant north Fresh seed or a nursery plant. In work: Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec
Harvest: Red cherries, pulp, ferment, dry, roast. A house plant is mostly an ornament.

Jasmine-white flowers smell better than most houseplants.
A crop wants a climate, not a windowsill.

Safety

Uncontrolled anxiety or insomnia Late pregnancy in large amounts without advice

Lore

A goatherd named Kaldi is the folk origin, goats dancing on Ethiopian berries. Yemen’s Sufi houses used it to stay awake for prayer; Venice met it as a curiosity, then a vice, then breakfast. The word is Arabic qahwa. Pope Clement VIII was asked to ban it as Muslim wine and, the story goes, baptized it instead.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.