The genus of plants that produce coffee berries; the scientific botanical name for coffee plants.
From Arabic qahwah (wine or a type of wine), which became Medieval Latin coffea. The term entered European scientific nomenclature during the 18th century as coffee became a major global trade commodity.
When Carl Linnaeus created the scientific naming system, he chose Coffea as the genus for coffee plants—and that choice reflected coffee's already massive importance to global trade and European culture in the 1700s. Few plants have names so directly borrowed from Arabic.
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