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Good for them! I wish them much success. I can think of no reason why several more states in America couldn't be growing coffee.
Coffee is so popular here that on a per capita basis, Canadians drink more coffee than people in any other country in the world so it's no surprise that some enterprising and determined Canadian farmers (and hobbyists) started growing coffee. There's a few farms in Canada where 4' high Arabica coffee shrubs are grown indoors in commercial greenhouses. On the west coast there's a couple of outdoor rainforest coffee farms on Vancouver Island that have been in operation for 15 years or so now and they are doing very well and are expanding their farms and production. Some people in British Columbia's Okanagan vinyards and fruit orchards region have started experimenting with growing coffee as an understory plant in already existing fruit orchards.
So I think it's not out of the question that as the climate continues to change coffee might be expected to become a major new plantation crop for many farmers throughout North America.
Those don't look like coffee trees that he's walking through. Coffee generally has much more horizontal branches and bigger leaves than those in the picture. Haven't a clue what the trees in the picture are, but they aren't coffee.
We usually keep the coffee pruned pretty low, too, so it's easier to pick.
Maybe they'll try growing cacao trees, too? Those need an understory location to start out in, so it may work under avocado trees.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Originally Posted by hotzcatz
Those don't look like coffee trees that he's walking through. Coffee generally has much more horizontal branches and bigger leaves than those in the picture. Haven't a clue what the trees in the picture are, but they aren't coffee.
We usually keep the coffee pruned pretty low, too, so it's easier to pick.
Maybe they'll try growing cacao trees, too? Those need an understory location to start out in, so it may work under avocado trees.
I agree, those don't look at all like coffee trees. I actually grew one in my office window in Seattle, got blossoms which I hand pollinated. The result was 7 beans which I roasted and made the world's smallest cup of coffee. It tasted like coffee, but definitely not something I'd want to drink every day. Currently I have an India Banyan bonsai in my office window.
Coffee is intensely labor intensive. It can not be machine harvested because the beans ripen at different times. So someone has to go through and pick the ripe beans by hand, leaving the rest of the crop to ripen at its own pace.
That is why bulk crops of coffee come from areas where labor is cheap. It's not so much growing conditions, because coffee isn't finicky about where it likes to grow.
Coffee from Hawaii is excellent but quite expensive to buy because the coffee plantation in Hawaii must pay minimum wage and provide health insurance, disability insurance, and pay the employer's portion of social security tax. The $2 a pound coffee comes from places where labor is a few dollars a day and there is no disability coverage, paid days off, health insurance, child labor laws, or worker's rights.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Originally Posted by arleigh
Is that a tree one can get in a store or does it have to be ordered on line ?
You can find Coffea Arabica in most garden centers, the houseplant section. They have a very attractive, glossy green leaf and make good houseplants, beans or not. If you meant my India Banyan, I have never seen them for sale. I acquired some seeds from Portugal, and followed a very complicated germination process resulting in 4 trees, 12 years ago, then rooted cuttings for more. In areas like Florida where they can survive the winter, they are considered invasive or noxious, as one tree can expand to cover several acres as the aerial roots hit the soil.
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I can think of no reason why several more states in America couldn't be growing coffee.
