Meise Botanic Garden is more than an attractive event venue for us. For coffee science and coffee biodiversity, Meise is a working infrastructure: living collections, a historically strong herbarium, and ongoing Coffea research in Central Africa.

This combination is rare. It helps explain why Canephorum is such a fitting host location for our event on June 22 and 23, 2026.

In practice, we often talk only about Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora. Botanically, that is a very narrow slice. Taxonomic revisions and new species delimitations currently place the number of recognized Coffea species at well over 100. Some sources speak of more than 130.

Meise communicates this insight deliberately from a practitioner’s perspective and uses a more conservative, easy-to-follow figure. Around 110 wild Coffea species have been described, and ten of them were co-discovered over the past 25 years by researchers from Meise.

For roasting practice, this breadth is not abstract. It is the biological basis for future breeding, resilience, and potentially new sensory profiles.

Meise holds more than 30,000 living accessions, representing around 18,800 taxa. Within this living infrastructure, the family Rubiaceae is a clear strength. Meise describes a living Rubiaceae collection of more than 300 species that is continuously sampled for research.

Meise also states that its collections include about one third of all wild Coffea species. This is not a display concept. It is genetic reference material that can later matter for breeding decisions, resistance questions, and the classification of quality potential.

Coffee research needs references. Meise dates its herbarium to 1871 and describes it as a central reference collection for the flora of Central Africa. One striking detail is its coverage. Meise reports that 85% of all specimens ever collected from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi are represented in the herbarium.

For coffee, that means taxonomy and origin assignment are not just labels. They depend on specimens, identifications, and comparative material. Without this foundation, claims about diversity quickly become vague.

Meise explicitly positions itself as a knowledge center for wild coffee species in Central Africa and connects living collections with genetic and chemical research. It refers to DNA analytics and spectrometry, methods that link two levels: evolutionary lineages and measurable composition.

This is relevant in practice because “quality” in coffee isn’t just a matter of taste. It also depends on chemical markers and genetic factors, for example when we talk about disease resistance or resilience to stress.

Meise states openly that more than 60% of wild coffee species are threatened by habitat loss and climate change. This figure is supported by a large-scale threat assessment that classifies at least 60% of coffee species as threatened and also points to gaps in protected areas and in collections.

That helps explain the role of botanic gardens in a coffee context. Ex situ conservation is not a replacement for protecting habitats, but it can become the last safety net when populations disappear or when new fieldwork is not feasible for long periods.

A good example is Coffea dactylifera. Meise reports a rediscovery after more than half a century without field observations, together with KU Leuven and Congolese partners.

In Meise’s framing, this is not about a “new coffee variety,” but about three scientific levels: genetic placement, sensory characterization, and potential value as a wild relative for breeding.

For Canephorum, Meise is also a plausible partner because the work there is not only about speaking of Coffea in general. Projects in Central African landscapes address concrete genetic questions. Meise describes, for example, a project that studies gene flow, population structure, and pollination and seed dispersal in Coffea canephora under forest disturbance.

In parallel, diversity and related Rubiaceae are documented in the Yangambi context, with the explicit goal of supporting conservation strategies for genetic resources.

Genetics is not only a breeding lab topic. It is landscape, exchange, introgression, and it shapes which diversity will still be available in the future.

Our event on June 22 and 23, 2026 takes place in this context. Meise is not only a botanic garden. It is a place where Coffea diversity is treated as a research field, from herbarium specimens to living genetic resources.

If we want to speak seriously about diversity and the value of Coffea canephora, this location fits because biodiversity is handled here as practical work infrastructure.