The oil content was determined in seeds of several continental African species of the coffee germplasm bank of Instituto Agronômico de Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil. Oil was extracted from seeds with hexane in Soxhlet apparatus. Due to the economic importance, C. arabica and C. canephora have been the best studied species concerning oil content and composition, and the results obtained are in agreement with the reported in the literature. On the other hand, only one report in the literature describes the results of oil analyses in other few species of the African continent, although it does not allow comparison with our results. The oil content of most of the species varied from 9 to 15%, therefore, similar to the range observed for C. arabica and C. canephora. The exception was C. salvatrix, with 29% of oil in the seeds.
African coffee species; Coffea; oil content
