"This will be a very, very small experiment. We are planning to plant 18 trees. To put that into perspective, there are 1.2bn trees in Brazil", he said.
"It is really a knowledge gaining experiment."
According to David, the coffee plant is a "relatively easy plant to grow", as long as the conditions are right.
He said the team talked to producers in coffee-growing countries to establish what soil conditions were needed to successfully grow the plants.
They looked at issues such as soil acidity and temperature and then tried to replicate those conditions to get the seeds to germinate and grow in Northern Ireland.
He said the coffee plant could survive "quite well" in kitchens and bathrooms, and could make good house plants which produce "lovely, fragrant flowers" under the right conditions.
"It`s just a matter of bringing the temperature slowly to 23C and keeping it there," he said.
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