THE PROCESS IN MOTION

What climate does arabica need?

Start the scene or choose a stage. The animation simplifies the mechanism; what follows gives the details and the available references.

▶ Play the process01A mean of 20 to 25 °C02Frost kills it03The rain that follows drought04One degree every 180 meters05Three species, three optima

A mean of 20 to 25 °C

The arabica coffee plant requires an annual mean of 20 to 25 °C. It tolerates minima around 15 °C and maxima around 30 °C: it is an understory plant, native to the Abyssinian highlands.

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1. A mean of 20 to 25 °CThe arabica coffee plant requires an annual mean of 20 to 25 °C. It tolerates minima around 15 °C and maxima around 30 °C: it is an understory plant, native to the Abyssinian highlands.
2. Frost kills itIt cannot withstand frost: it is not the harvest that suffers, it is the tree that dies, between minus two and minus three degrees.
3. The rain that follows droughtIt needs 1,500 to 2,000 mm of rain a year, with a marked dry season of three to four months: flowering is triggered by the rain that follows a dry spell.
4. One degree every 180 metersThe temperature drops by about one degree every 180 m. In the tropics there are therefore only two ways to find this climate again: go up in altitude, or move away from the equator. Hence arabica up to 2,500 m in Kenya, and between 400 and 800 m in Brazil.
5. Three species, three optimaYang's review (2026) gives about 30 °C by day and 26 °C by night for canephora, 23 and 19 °C for eugenioides, 20 to 24 °C as a mean for arabica, born of these two species: it inherited the coolness of eugenioides. The real thresholds per cultivar, in the field, remain unknown.

To remember: Arabica lives in a narrow temperature band, and it is altitude that finds it for the plant in the tropics.

In history: As early as 1955, Coste described the original climate of the species: 1,500 to 1,800 m, 20 to 22 °C, less than 1,500 mm of rain.

Read the full article and its sources ↓

The arabica coffee plant requires an annual mean of 20 to 25 °C, tolerates minima around 15 °C and maxima around 30 °C, and cannot withstand frost: the tree dies between minus two and minus three degrees. It needs 1,500 to 2,000 mm of rain a year with a marked dry season of three to four months, flowering being triggered by the rain that follows a dry spell.

For the original climate of the species, on the Abyssinian highlands, Coste gives an altitude of 1,500 to 1,800 m, a mean of 20 to 22 °C and less than 1,500 mm of rain. Since the thermal gradient is about one degree per 180 m, there are only two ways to find this climate again in the tropics: go up in altitude or move away from the equator, which explains why arabica grows up to 2,500 m in Kenya and between 400 and 800 m in Brazil.

Coste 1955, Les caféiers et les cafés dans le monde, vol. I, ch. climate; Portères 1937 (lower limit at 800 m in West Africa); LC ch. 2

The review by Yang and coauthors, published in Agriculture in 2026, specifies the optima by species: about 30 °C by day and 26 °C by night for Coffea canephora, 23 and 19 °C for Coffea eugenioides, 20 to 24 °C annual mean for arabica. These three figures are read together since genomics established that arabica was born of the hybridization of these two species: it inherited the coolness of its maternal parent, eugenioides.

The same authors point out that arabica proved resilient up to 37 °C under controlled conditions with elevated CO2, which puts the published thresholds in perspective, and acknowledge that the real thermal thresholds per cultivar, in the field, are not known: almost everything we know comes from acute stresses induced in the laboratory. The most urgent question of this plate, at what temperature a given coffee plant stops producing where it grows, therefore has no precise answer in 2026.

Yang et al. 2026, Agriculture, review “from genome to cup”, pp. 7-8; LC ch. 2 and 4