The coffee tree is a native of eastern Africa, but it was in Arabia that it first became known to the people in Europe, and until about they year 1700 A. D. That country produced the entire supply. Then the coffee seeds found their way to Java, by means of some traders, and one of the first plants grown on that island was sent to South America, where the cultivation（种植）of coffee has steadily increased, extending to the West Indies, until now the offspring（后代）of this one plant produce more coffee than is obtained from all the other plants in the world.
The plant is evergreen, and is from six to twelve feet high, the stem（茎）being from ten to fifteen inches in diameter. Its fruit is like a cherry, and is very good to eat. Under the pulp（果肉）of this cherry found the bean or berry we call coffee, wrapped in a fine, thin skin. The berry is at first very soft, and has a bad taste; but as the cherry ripens the berry grows harder, and the dried-up fruit becomes a shell or pod（荚）of a deep brown color. When the fruit is so ripe that it can be shaken from the tree, the husks（外壳）are separated from the berries, and are used, in Arabia, by the natives, while the berries are sold.
Before the berry can be used, it undergoes a process of roasting. The amount of aromatic（芳香的）oil brought out in roasting has much to do with the market value of coffee, and it has been found that the longer the raw coffee is kept, the richer it becomes in this oil, and so the more valuable. But after the coffee is roasted, and especially after it is ground（磨碎）, it loses its aroma rapidly.
Arabia produces the celebrated Mocha coffee, which is the finest in the world; but little or none of the best product is ever taken out of that country, The Java coffee from the East Indies is next prized, but the best quality of this kind is also quite difficult to obtain, and many, therefor, prefer the finest grades of Rio coffee from South America to such Mocha and Java.
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