Coffee Developed Caffeine Independently From Its Cousin Cacao: Study
Researchers have pieced together the genetic atlas of the two most commonly cultivated species of coffee plant and uncovered a rather independent streak in their evolution.
Coffee developed its caffeine-generating capacity independently from its cousin, cacao, according to the first whole genome study published online in the journal Science.
The international team that spent years piecing together coffee’s genome suggests that the capacity to produce caffeine has developed independently at least twice, in cacao and coffee, in what’s known as convergent evolution. (Koalas and humans, for instance, have fingerprints, and widely divergent animals have developed prickly outsides to protect their gooey insides.)
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