The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: AndrewAZ on August 25, 2022, 11:26:12 PM
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I know everyone grows coffee for the beans. But, does any coffee produce fruit that is pleasantly edible? Would be nice to have a plant with a dual purpose.
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Coffee cherries have very little pulp/flesh. The skin is edible though but it's best used for making tea.
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The fruit taste reminds me of a cooked onion with sugar. it's an odd savory taste. Maybe with natural drying or fermentation it may taste differently, or under the influence of miracle fruit 9t may taste better but for me it's more of a curiosity. Perhaps there are some better tasting varieties out there.
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It's one of those traits that likely almost no one has tried to select for at any scale given the value of the seeds.
Coffee cherries have very little pulp/flesh. The skin is edible though but it's best used for making tea.
Word. Good cascara/ qishr (from a farm drying the fruit for that purpose and not tossing it in a moldy fermentation pile first) is delicious with a slice of ginger, reminds me of tamarind very slightly.
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If nobody was there to stop me I would regularly eat the pulp off the coffee cherries at school. But I also eat the flesh off of our native holly leaf cherries. Both have very little flesh to seed but are enjoyable
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The ones I've tasted have had little flavor to speak of, but were sweet. Depending on ripeness you could even eat the seed.
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Even selected varietals that are very sweet just kind of have a meh undertone for me.
Any fruit is edible, it's just how much you enjoy it. If you don't mind the undertones, you will be happy eating the cherries anyways.
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I have a few arabica plants that are just starting to flower. I was looking forward to trying the fruit, and in my head I was thinking the raw seed would be soft enough to eat... but since reading it sounds hard like a nut and probably gross tasting. Oh well, I will probably ditch them once I try the fruit. I have tried every type of roasted coffee beans, from super fancy freshly-roasted to costco to cheapo stuff and I can't much tell the difference... the only thing that seems to matter is the roast (light/med/dark)
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I forget exactly where i seen it i think it might of been one of ther "weird fruit explorer" youtube videos, but the people said you eat the fruit for the nut not the flesh. I forget the country he was in at the time but ya i guess its apparently the best part but im sure thats all subjective lol.
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One of the coffee species I have is Red Catuai. I enjoy eating the flesh for they are semi-sweet. Then I process the beans for later roasting.
(https://i.postimg.cc/MnLfhz4y/20211213-152824.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/MnLfhz4y)
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To be precise, Catuai is a cultivar of Coffea Arabica.
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I think coffee cherries taste like slightly sweetened celery.
Whenever I start new coffee plants from seed in my greenhouse, I select seeds that are very plump with as much pulpas I can find.
I can confirm that after four generations of selective breeding for the flesh, I have achieved no appreciable difference in the amount of pulp. Hasn't hurt the seeds, though.
I'll get back to you in another hundred generations...
Carolyn
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Not the berries but along similar lines for dual use of coffee plants, traditionally the leaves are dried and made into a tea in some places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee-leaf_tea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee-leaf_tea) .
I've had it a couple of times and found it pleasant. Sort of an earthy green tea flavor.