Coffee is a very important commodity in the world. It is a perennial plant and as a consequence its genetic improvement had been difficult. The biotechnology, in particular somatic embryogenesis (SE) has helped to the propagation of commercial coffee cultivars. Along almost 50 years, different research groups around the world have developed uncountable SE processes to produce an efficient, reproducible, and reliable SE process. Many of the factors that affect the embryogenic response have been studied. It has been demonstrated that the genetic modification of coffee is possible. This transformation can lead to the improvement of varieties with very attractive agronomic traits, such as low caffeine content, resistant to diseases and pests. IntroductionCoffee is one of the two major commodities in the world. The cultivation of coffee gives employment to more than 80 million people, and every year, more than 11 million hectares are cultivated around the world.All coffee species are trees or perennial woody bushes. The coffee plants differ among themselves in different aspects such as morphology, size, and ecological adaptation. Although there are more than 124 species of the Coffea genus, only two are used to produce coffee commercially, Coffea arabica and C. canephora, which accounts for 60 and 40 % of world coffee production, respectively. C. canephora (2n = 2x = 22) is an outcrossing diploid, allogamous, consisting of polymorphic populations of strongly heterozygous individuals and with high caffeine content. C. arabica is an allotetraploid (2n = 4x = 44) derived from a spontaneous

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