Coffee we enjoy today came to life 600,000 years ago, says study

Study explored ways to protect coffee from pests and climate change. Photo: Getty

Adithi Ramakrishnan

That coffee you slurped this morning? It’s 600,000 years old.

Using genes from coffee plants around the world, researchers built a family tree for the world’s most popular type of coffee, known to scientists as Coffea arabica and to coffee lovers simply as “arabica.”