Java coffee is a coffee produced on the island of Java. In the United States, the term "Java" by itself is slang for coffee generally. The Indonesian phrase Kopi Jawa refers not only to the origin of the coffee, but is used to distinguish the strong, black, very sweet coffee, with powdered grains in the drink, from other forms of the drink.
The Dutch began cultivation of coffee trees on Java (part of the Dutch East Indies) in the 17th century and it has been exported globally since. The coffee agricultural systems found on Java have changed considerably over time. A rust plague in the late 1880s killed off much of the plantation stocks in Sukabumi, before spreading to Central Java and parts of East Java. The Dutch responded by replacing the Arabica firstly with Liberica (a tough, but somewhat unpalatable coffee) and later with Robusta. Today Java's old colonial era plantations provide just a fraction of the coffee grown on the island.
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