We call it a coffee bean, but it is the seed of the coffee tree’s fruit.* Nothing more, nothing less. A coffee bean is not a legume, nor is it a fruit, berry, or nut. I grew over 7000 trees over the course of a decade on my Kona coffee farm on The Big Island of Hawaii, so I do know what I’m talking about. If someone tries to tell you otherwise, you can set them straight with the knowledge I am about to share.
* It’s technically not really a tree, either, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Let’s take a hard look and find out where the little marvel that makes our favorite beverage comes from.
Is a coffee bean a legume?
To really get at the root of this question and the ones that follow, we are going to have to define our terms. Botanically speaking, a legume is a very specific thing. You can tell when something is a real bean or legume when you see it growing in its natural state: it will be in a pod, like peas, soybeans, and peanuts. These pods split open when they mature, exposing the (usually) multiple seeds. You can pop a pea or bean out of its pod and, given the proper conditions of water, sun, and soil, it will grow into a plant. Put simply, while all beans are seeds, not all seeds are beans. Coffee falls into this second category – a seed, but not a bean.
Is a coffee bean a nut?
Unlike legumes, nuts do not split open when mature. They have a hard, outer shell that only opens when they germinate or are forced open by your nutcracker. Additionally, unlike legumes, nuts tend to only have a single fruit inside. Examples of nuts that can truly fit the botanical classification are pecans, hazelnuts, and acorns. Surprisingly, walnuts, pistachios, and almonds are NOT true nuts! And neither is coffee, despite the popularity of “Chock Full of Nuts” coffee.* Keep reading to find out why.
Is a coffee bean a berry?
Well, of course, a coffee bean is not a berry. We’ve already gone over this. But, to be fair, the fruit of the coffee tree, historically, has often been called a berry. This is due to the fact that the word berry has been used for centuries to indicate any small fruit, and in its more general usage, it can refer to “berry-like things,” which the coffee fruit is.
Fair warning: Calling the fruit a berry is not strictly correct and will not win you a bet at the café or bar. In botany, the definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit in which all three layers – endocarp, mesocarp, and exocarp – are soft. Good examples of this are grapes or tomatoes. The endocarp (also known as the parchment) of coffee is hard, so it does not qualify as a berry.
Yeah, that’s right, a tomato is a berry. So are bananas and eggplants. But ironically, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are not!
Is a coffee bean a fruit?
Again, no. What we call a coffee bean is the seed of the coffee cherry, which is a fruit. This, however, is not the kind of cherry you will find baked into a pie.
The coffee cherry is the seed-bearing body formed from a flower. That makes it a fruit. They are red when ripe, although some varieties are more purplish, and some are even yellow. It has a thin skin, thin pulp, and a large “seed to total volume” ratio. That’s okay, though, because the fruit is not the prize here. Since there is not much “fruit,” even though it is edible, little is done with it. It is usually composted to give back nutrition to the soil. Some Kona farmers have been known to use it to make jelly to sell at the farmers market, and others make a tea from the skins removed during processing. But the real star is the seed itself.
Even calling it a fruit is not 100% correct!
Botanically, a coffee cherry is a “drupe” or “stone fruit.” A drupe is a fruit that does not split open to release seeds when ripe, and that has an outer fleshy part surrounding a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed or kernel inside. That’s the same category that peaches, walnuts, and almonds are found in. Now that’s some information you could win a bet with!
What Was That About Coffee Not Being a Tree?
Let me sum up with this bit I wrote for The Coffee Lover’s Dictionary:
| coffee tree plant that provides our favorite beverage UBOI (Useless Bit Of Information) Technically, coffee plants are not trees. A tree is defined as a woody plant having one erect perennial trunk at least 3 inches in diameter at a point 4-1/2 feet above the ground. It also must have a formed crown of foliage, and a mature height of at least 13 feet. Other than the potential of the height, coffee does not have these characteristics. Cultivated coffee is a shrub. If you happen to find any growing wild, it might be a bush. In the interest of full disclosure, I did find some abandoned coffee on the edge of my farm that might have technically qualified as trees. A Coffee Lover’s Dictionary, by Timothy Bruno © Procaffeination Press, 2025 |
A Word From Tim
So, to wrap this up, what we think of as a “coffee bean” is actually the seed of the coffee cherry, a “stone fruit” of the coffee tree, which is not actually a tree – they are technically a shrub. Coffee cherries are similar to walnuts in that they are not actually nuts. A coffee bean is not a “bean” the way a legume like a green bean is, and even though some people have called it a berry, it’s not actually one of those, either. And don’t try that “well if coffee is a fruit, then a cup of coffee must be fruit juice” nonsense. It’s not. If I had a nickel for every time I have been queried on this topic, I could buy one of those ridiculously expensive espresso machines.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions About Coffee Beans
A coffee bean is the seed from the fruit of a coffee plant. This fruit is called a coffee cherry.
Not really. A coffee bean is the seed of the coffee cherry, but that is not the same fruit you are probably thinking of. The kind of cherry you make a pie out of comes from a cherry tree (Prunus avium). Those pits will not give you a coffee bean. These folks think there are some things you CAN use them for.
The coffee beans you get when you purchase “whole bean coffee” from the store are actually split-apart seeds from the fruit – a coffee cherry – of the coffee tree. Each “bean” is half of a seed that has been roasted for your brewing pleasure.
Short answer: no. Longer answer: Still no. Coffee beans are the seeds of the fruit of the coffee tree. Sometimes, coffee cherries are called “coffee berries.” This is due to the history of calling any small fruit “a berry.”
Well, to be fair, they do sort of resemble a bean. Which makes sense, if you think about it; a true bean is a seed and a coffee bean is the seed from the fruit of the coffee tree.
We coffee lovers are definitely a curious lot, and some of us love to be pedantic. Keep those questions coming!