**1. Introduction**

The genus *Coffea* belongs to the Rubiaceae family and has over 100 species [1]. However, only *Coffea arabica* and *Coffea canephora* species are commercial, the former accounting for almost 75% of world coffee production and the latter for the remaining 25%. Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter of coffee accounting for about 70% of world exports [2]. *C. arabica* has this hegemony for producing pleasant and stimulating drink that is consumed worldwide while *C. canephora* coffee is less palatable and is intended primarily for the instant coffee industry.

*Coffea* breeding aims to combine genotypes of *C. arabica* and *C. canephora* species to release genetically stable varieties with strong traits of both species [3, 4]. In conventional *Coffea* breeding it takes six to eight selection cycles to generate a new cultivar, which is about 40 years. Each cycle corresponds to five years. But it takes four to five harvests to consistently evaluate a generation [5]. In addition, it is important that evaluations are performed on plants over five years of age to obtain reliable yield data [6]. In the breeding program, during the selection phase intermediate populations of progenies are generated and each one of them has different genetic pattern. Thus each progeny corresponds to a single plant.

In the selection phase, the progenies have the characteristic of heterosis that favors the occurrence of differentiated plants. Some of these plants may have special characteristics such as tolerance to biotic and abiotic factors or high productivity or excellent drink quality or all of these. To confirm if a progeny is special it must be multiplied and evaluated in relation to its agronomic performance in the field. Following this phase, the progeny may be released as a clonal cultivar. Cloning selected materials allows to capture all selection and improvement gains without involving genetic segregation [7].

The multiplication of intermediate genotypes to breeding program is not indicated by seeds because plants resulting from the germination may have genetic segregation that leads to loss of the special features [8]. Thus, it is recommended that these genotypes be vegetatively multiplied to maintain their genetic pattern. The vegetative multiplication of coffee plants has been obtained by cutting, and the species *C. canephora* responds very well to this process [9] while arabica plants are less efficient by this way, having low multiplication rate [10].

Usually *C. arabica* genotypes are vegetatively multiplied by in *vitro* cultivation. *In vitro* culture or plant tissue culture belongs to Plant Biotechnology which comprises culturing cells, tissues or organs under aseptic conditions and using artificial culture media containing different components such as water, minerals, vitamins, carbon source and plant growth regulators [11]. Plant tissue culture involves micropropagation processes such as somatic embryogenesis.
