Coffea dewevrei

A large Central African forest species long sold under the trade name Excelsa, historically treated as a variety of liberica.

This species is the accepted home, under Kew's Plants of the World Online, for the coffee long marketed as **Excelsa**. POWO's current treatment accepts it at full species rank as *Coffea dewevrei* De Wild. & T.Durand, native to a belt of Central Africa from Cameroon and the Central African Republic through the Congo Basin to South Sudan and Uganda. Historically, several authors (including Lebrun's 1941 combination) treated it as *Coffea liberica* var. *dewevrei*, and the name '*Coffea excelsa*' (A.Chevalier) itself survives only as a synonymic variety epithet (*C. dewevrei* var. *excelsa*) under current Kew taxonomy, not as an accepted species or even the accepted name for this taxon. POWO's synonymy lists it among several heterotypic synonyms (with *C. arnoldiana*, *C. aruwimiensis*, and others) rather than as the accepted name.

Commercially, beans sold as 'Excelsa' come from this species/complex and are grown in small volumes in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, the Philippines) and parts of Africa, valued for a distinctive tart, fruity cup that sits outside the usual arabica/robusta flavor spectrum.

History

Described from Congo Basin (Uele district) material by De Wildeman & Durand in the early 1900s. Long sold in trade as 'Excelsa' after A. Chevalier's later varietal epithet. Small commercial plantings persist in Vietnam, the Philippines and parts of Central/East Africa.