Are you interested in germinating coffee beans? So was I – so I figured it out and now have it down to a science.

Caffeine is my friend. That’s why I grow coffee, tea and yaupon holly.

Coffee is by far my favorite of the caffeine-producers, however, since its flavor is unparalleled and its kick is epic.

The problem is, right now I only have one plant in the greenhouse. That’s not near enough to match the production of coffee I need to keep me waking up in the morning.

This fall was the first time it produced coffee cherries, and I decided that instead of roasting and consuming the bounty… I’d use all the cherries for planting purposes. The last few just ripened… and I planted the first few some months ago.

The cherries have a pleasant flavor much like a red bell pepper. My kids and I (and various guests) ate the fruit and spit out the “beans” inside them.

I then planted the beans in little pots of soil on my kitchen windowsill, it being a bit chilly for coffee outside at this time of year.

When we visited the Caribbean, coffee was happy year-round.

Delicious!

As for the seeds I planted… they sat in their little pots for a couple of months until I wondered if anything was going to happen.

Then, one day, a little bean pushed its way out of the ground. Then another, and another, and another.

The final destination for most of the plants I’m starting will be South Florida, since they won’t grow outdoors here. I’ll likely hire a Columbian guy with a donkey to ride around Ft. Lauderdale and check up on them for me, then once a year I’ll get a few big crates of fragrant beans sent north via steamboat.

It’ll be awesome.

Finally, the pictures above are from the first round of beans I germinated. I discovered that they’ll sprout a lot faster if you put a heat mat (like this one) underneath the pots. They’ll sometimes come up in just a couple of weeks that way.

Now find some fresh coffee beans… and get planting!