Coffee as a plant
Around 3.5 billion years ago, photosynthesis developed in organisms, allowing them to tap into flows of energy from the sun, revolutionizing the evolution of life. This opened up a gateway of energy, as photons from the sun supply organisms with much more energy than the photons from the cosmic background radiation. Photosynthesis allowed for an abundance of energy, as organisms could now create their own energy from sunlight, infinitely accelerating the pace of evolution. But why was photosynthesis essential for the formation of plants? Photosynthesis formed in single-cell organisms, such as cyanobacteria, which would extract their energy from raw materials such as water and carbon dioxide . Through evolution, these bacteria were absorbed by eukaryotic cells—cells with a nucleus that could sustain a stable lifetime through respiration. This symbiosis is widely accepted as resulting in the formation of chloroplasts, which are essential for plant growth. As these cells with photosynthetic abilities continued evolving into multicellularity, more complex life, such as plants, emerged. These early plants began to appear during the Ediacaran era, around 520 million years ago. Through evolution, these cells diversified, creating numerous plant families, including the Rubiaceae family, which includes one of the most famous plants in today’s world: coffee. Plants such as coffee require a lot of energy, which is why they are native to specific parts of the world; they mostly grow in warmer climates and during seasons with the longest hours of sunlight.