A coffee bean is a seed of the Coffea plant and the source for coffee. It is the pip inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit.

Are coffee beans actually beans?

But National Bean Day is a great excuse for us to share a little known fact about coffee beans: they're not really beans at all! While they do look a lot like beans, coffee “beans” are actually the seed, or pit, of the fruit that grows on coffee trees. Coffee trees grow small, bright red fruit called coffee cherries.

What means coffee beans?

: the usually dried and roasted seed of a tropical plant (genus Coffea and especially C. arabica and C. canephora) from which coffee (see coffee sense 1a) is prepared.