Hortus Botanicus

This guide to Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam follows a single coffee cutting from Java, shipped here by Dutch East India Company traders in 1706, and how it was propagated and sent on to European courts, including a five-foot plant the city's burgomaster gave Louis XIV in 1714. It then follows French naval captain Gabriel de Clieu, who in 1723 carried a descendant of that plant across the Atlantic toward Martinique, through pirates, storms and weeks of dead calm that tested how far he would go to keep it alive. Look for the palms and cycads near the entrance as you listen.