That coffee you slurped this morning? It’s 600,000 years old.

Using genes from coffee plants around the world, researchers built a family tree for the world’s most popular type of coffee, known to scientists as Coffea arabica and to coffee lovers simply as “arabica.” 

The researchers, hoping to learn more about the plants to better protect them from pests and climate change, found that the species emerged around 600,000 years ago through natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species. 

“In other words, prior to any intervention from man,” said Victor Albert, a biologist at the University at Buffalo who co-led the study.