Coffee Plant

Coffee plants or coffea arabica is easy to grow indoors, makes a very attractive houseplant and under the right conditions may even reward you with flowers and berries eventually.

Choose a spot where your coffee plant will get some natural but not direct sunlight. A desk or table away from the window is ideal. Coffee plants originate in the tropics and will do best indoors in a warm room year round. If the temperature drops below 5C your plant will start to suffer.

In a warm room, coffee plants will need regular watering, 2 or 3 times a week. If you are going away for a few days you can stand your plant in a shallow saucer of water to keep the soil moist. A liquid feed added to the water every few waterings will also help your plant to grow.

In the tropics coffee plants can grow to six-foot and produce two to four pounds of coffee a year. To achieve this in the UK you will need to repot your plant regularly using a rich acid soil. These plants are approximately 1 year old and would normally start to flower in their third or fourth year producing the characteristic red berries that can be harvested, pulped, fermented, dried and roasted. Alternatively you can just enjoy them for their glossy leaves and novelty value!

Coffee plants are generally very robust plants but they are quite hungry feeders. If the new foliage comes through pale or mottled then it is lacking in nutrients, you can combat this with a good houseplant feed or by repotting your plant into a larger pot with fresh compost. Black tips to the leaves are usually an indication that your plant has got too cold or the leaves have been scorched so try a warmer spot out of direct sunlight. If you neglect the watering you may find some of the leaves shrivel and dry out. In both cases remove the damaged foliage at the stem and return to a regular watering routine and your plant should soon start to recover.