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Cultivation
There are two main cultivated coffee plant strains, the Coffea canephora and the Coffea arabica. C. Arabica tends to be the most popular choice of coffee and tends to be three quarters of the world harvest. C. canephora has a more bitter and less flavour strain however it does have the advantage of being more resistant to disease and can be grown in areas not suitable for C. Arabica. There are two other strains Coffea liberica grown in Liberia and Coffea esliaca grown in Sudan.
The Arabica coffee is usually grown in Latin America, Eastern Africa, Arabia and Asia. The robusta strain can be found in Western and Central Africa, South East Asia and some parts of Brazil. The beans that are harvested and processed usually have a distinctive flavour to where they were grown and so the resulting product is named by the region so the purchaser knows what to expect in flavor, aroma, body and acidity.
Traditionally the farming of coffee was done in the shade of trees, however now modern techniques flavour growth in direct sunlight causing the berries to ripen more rapidly and bushes to have a higher volume of yield. The sacrifice to this method is that the flavour is compromised in comparison with the traditional method which produces a much higher quality bean. Due to consumer demand it is impossible for the traditional method to be used as the yield would not be enough to satisfy world demand and costs would rise to the public.