Nothing beats that smell when the coffee begins that brew. That hot water hitting those grounds brings out the scent and without even drinking a single drop, our mood improves. When we brew that delicious cup of coffee in the morning (or the afternoon, or the evening), a lot of us don’t think too much about where it comes from. Or how it made it to our grocery store shelves. Most of us simply struggle with which coffee to purchase but don’t think about the journey it took for the coffee to make it to our favorite roasters or our favorite grocery chains.
We don’t think about the journey coffee takes before it gets to the point where we can take it home. We have all balked at the price of coffee a time or two because how can a beverage cost that much?! Well, the journey coffee takes is quite a long one.
The beginning. The first misconception is that coffee is a bean when it is in fact a fruit pit! In fact, if you simply take a coffee bean in its natural form and plant it, you’ll get your very own coffee tree out of it! Of course, you’ll have to wait three to four years before it will bear any fruit. The fruit is red and roughly the size of cherries, hence the name, coffee cherry. The ideal location for coffee trees is along the equator as it is a year-round moist environment. There are only two subspecies of coffee trees, Arabica and Robusta. You’ll probably recognize those names as they tend to identify what kind of coffee you’re purchasing.
The harvest. Once the tree has reached maturity and grows the cherries, they are harvested. The harvest is generally done by hand as the trees grow within the mountains and it isn’t possible to bring in machinery. The exception to that is coffee that comes from Brazil. Because of the flatlands they are able to harvest using machines. Generally there is only one harvest a year, except for in Columbia. Columbian coffee has two flowerings a year, so there is the main harvest and then the secondary harvest. There are two ways that growers harvest. One is to strip pick. This is exactly as it sounds and every single cherry is picked from the trees. This can be done by hand or machine. The second type of harvest is select harvest. This is when cherries are selected by hand when they are ripe. Harvesters will rotate between several trees over many days. It is labor intensive and usually only done for Arabica coffee. In any case, harvesters are paid by the amount of cherries they harvest. A good harvester can pick 100-200lbs of cherries a day. This will result in 20-40lbs of coffee beans.
Processing the harvest. The next step is to process the cherries that are harvested. This is done as soon as possible to avoid having the fruit spoil. There are two different ways this is done. The first is the dry method. The cherries are spread out over large tarps in the sun. They are continually raked and turned to avoid spoiling. Depending on weather, this can take several weeks for the cherries to get to their ideal moisture rate, which is 11%. The other method is the wet method. With this method, the pulp from the cherry is removed leaving the bean to dry with only the parchment skin on it. This process is done through pulping machines that then separate the beans by size. This is also done with water as the heavier beans drop to the bottom and lighter ones float to the top. The beans get separated and then transported to large fermentation tanks full of water. They remain there from 12-48 hours until the layer of mucilage around the bean is dissolved.
Drying the beans. This is exactly as it sounds and the beans are sun dried within their parchment.
Milling the beans. Now the the beans are dried, their outer parchment must be removed. First they are hulled by machinery if they were wet processed. The dry processed beans are removed from their entire husk. Next the beans are polished which is an optional process. After this the beans are graded and sorted by size and weight. They are also reviewed and inspected for any kind of flaws or imperfections.
Exportation. Now that the beans are dried and sorted they are now considered “green beans”. They are ready to be packaged in large quantities to be shipped around the world to different roasters. This is the type of bean that roasters will receive and can be purchased by the average consumer. If you have ever wanted to roast your own beans, this is something you can purchase to do so.
Roasting. Once the green beans are in hand for the roaster, they are then put in roasting machines to roast at approximately 550℉. During this process, the beans must be constantly moving so they don't burn.
Once the internal temperature of the bean reaches 400℉, they start to change color. This also unlocks the caffeol, a fragrant oil locked inside the bean. Once they are roasted to the specifications of the roaster, they are immediately cooled by either air or water.
Enjoying your coffee. Now that the coffee has been roasted, it is time to grind the beans and brew a cup for yourself!
Now that you know the process of what it takes for your coffee to make it into your favorite mug, you might appreciate it a little bit more. It is a long and labor intensive process to brew that delicious cup. So even if the coffee is just ‘okay’, remember that it still took work to get there.
Now, go brew that cup of coffee and give thanks!
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