Jun 17 2009
Is the Coffee Bean a Fruit or Legume?
Is the coffee bean a fruit or a legume?
Answer: it is a pit inside the coffee fruit.
The coffee bean is not technically a legume, because a legume is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or a fruit of these plants, and the coffee plant is not a member of the Fabaceae family.
The coffee “bean” is actually the seed of the coffee plant, the pit inside of the coffee fruit (AKA coffee berries and coffee cherries).
Structure of coffee berry and beans: 1: center cut 2:bean (endosperm) 3: silver skin (testa, epidermis), 4: parchment (hull, endocarp) 5: pectin layer 6: pulp (mesocarp) 7: outer skin (pericarp, exocarp) Source: Wikipedia, GNU license
