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I am a heavy coffee user and I want to know what's in my coffee and therefore I'd like to grow coffee in my home.

Is it possible to grow coffee in an apartment?

Mikael Dúi Bolinder
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    One large apartment plant will only produce enough coffee for a few cups worth each year, and that's after years of growth. They do look good, though. – J. Musser Jan 27 '15 at 22:47
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    @J.Musser This makes me wonder how much of the planet's surface area must be covered in coffee plants. – fredley Feb 03 '15 at 17:28
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    @TomMedley My point was, indoor coffee plants aren't that effective. Outdoors, a good plant will produce around 2-3 lbs. of grean beans per year. They are usually planted about 8'x8' apart, or a near equivalent, so 680 plants per acre, = around 1700 lbs of green coffee per acre per year, under good conditions. – J. Musser Feb 03 '15 at 17:36
  • Possible duplicate of this question? –  Feb 18 '15 at 13:26
  • @SamWhited imo no, as one indicates indoor culture, and the other outdoor. – J. Musser Feb 24 '15 at 02:53
  • Note that if you were to grow your own coffee plant in your apartment, environmental conditions strongly affect coffee flavor. Large variants between daytime and nighttime temperature add density to coffee beans, and produce the more lively features of coffee. This is predominantly why your higher quality arabica coffees tend to be grown at high altitude. A great example is a low grown Geshia vs. high grown. Low grown is bland, and ends up sitting in a botany lab for 50 years. I have seen high grown geshia sell for $60/kg. – Nate M. May 01 '17 at 14:26
  • Possibly a better idea would be to find a bean importer who is clear about their sources, and even has ethical guidelines about where they will and will not get their beans. I have that for my local green bean/coffee roasting equipment vendor. They do their upmost to deal directly with growers and co-ops, not distributors, so the farmers get the money. This also allows them to go into minute details about the source of each batch and variety of coffee bean they sell. Love the results of home-roasting, too. – PoloHoleSet May 03 '17 at 16:55

3 Answers3

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It is possible to grow coffee indoors. If allowed to grow as a tree they can reach 8 feet tall but if trimmed occasionally you can get the plant to grow more like a bush around 3-4 feet. This will change some based on the exact type.

Coffee plants prefer shade with a couple hours of direct sunlight in the morning. Keeping it by a window should be about right. Depending on your climate you want to be careful taking it outside during winter.

As J Musser mentioned, this will be a long process that will yield very little, but it can be done.

On the plus side, coffee plants are evergreens and look very nice as indoor plants.

You can read more here.

Edit: Stealing @JMussers comments to add to my answer

One large apartment plant will only produce enough coffee for a few cups worth each year, and that's after years of growth. They do look good, though. My point was, indoor coffee plants aren't that effective. Outdoors, a good plant will produce around 2-3 lbs. of grean beans per year. They are usually planted about 8'x8' apart, or a near equivalent, so 680 plants per acre, = around 1700 lbs of green coffee per acre per year, under good conditions.

Justin C
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    Since comments are transient and could disappear, it would be good idea to include in your answer what J Musser mentioned. – doppelgreener Feb 01 '15 at 22:19
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    I would like to add two photographs to support @JMusser. The first one shows coffee berries in a plantation (Photo credits). The second one shows coffee berries on a tree in a botanical garden. Both trees seem healthy. However, the amount of yield is not the same. – MTSan Jul 18 '18 at 08:59
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If you have enough space in a garden or you can rent a piece of community garden, you can consider setting up a greenhouse. As such, you can control the optimal environment for your plants and don't need to invade your living area.

Tim
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  • you can grow coffee in a greenhouse but it can actually be somewhat difficult. The main issue is greenhouses generally get warmer than a coffee tree prefers. The greenhouse can be ventilated and cooled, but that might not be good for other plants. This is why growing a coffee tree in a house actually works pretty well. – Justin C Feb 01 '15 at 19:57
  • This doesn't appear to answer the question: will that greenhouse enable a coffee plant to grow? – doppelgreener Feb 01 '15 at 22:20
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In an enlightened environment, but not directly under the sun, keep the temperature in between 15 °C and 25 °C, use plenty of water to the soil, water once a week when hot, water once in two weeks when cold, don't eat its leaves.

As the title itself asks for how to grow, I would like to answer that also.

A few days ago, I have encountered an Arabica plant. A very small one, at most one years old. At the bottom of the pot there were these instructions illustrated. I place the photo of the tag below. Happy farming!

Coffea_Arabica_Growing_Instructions_Illustrated

Note that, Cenaphora (aka Robusta) or Liberica may have different instructions. Meanwhile, as Liberica is a very large tree, I don't expect anyone tries to grow them at home.

MTSan
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