Coffee Growing – From the Plantation to Your Morning Cup

Every morning people around the world turn on their espresso makers, or drip style coffee machines to get that morning fix. Few of us ever take the time to consider where that bean we love so much came from. Most of us have the basic idea that our coffee was grown in Brazil or on a plantation in India, but it isn’t often that we take the time to learn how it’s all done.
The steps that it takes to get those beans from the farm to your cup are actually extensive, and the whole process is actually quite interesting.

Growing Coffee Arabica
Around 75 percent of the coffee produced in the world comes from one variety or another of the tree known as Coffee Arabica.
The plant is actually an evergreen. It has broad, shiny, leaves and produces small oval berries that resemble small cherries. Inside each of these berries are two small coffee beans. The trees grow to a height of about 14 feet, but are kept trimmed to around six feet by most farmers to encourage berry production. Each plant produces between 1 and 12 pound of coffee each year.

Coffee can be grown in many climates, but usually produces the best coffee when certain factors come together. An altitude of 3000 to 6000 feet is important, a cooler climate is better, and keeping the plants in direct sunlight for only a few hours per day is also important. The cooler climate promotes slower maturing of the berries which produces a harder bean. For shade, many farmers use shade plants, or specially built trellises that allow the sun to reach the plants for only a few hours per day.

Harvesting Coffee
When it comes time for harvest the berries are picked from the tree. In many countries this is still done by hand. In other countries such as Brazil, where the land is relatively flat, the picking process has been mechanized. In either case the berries are usually stripped from the branches and then move on to processing. Often coffee does not ripen uniformly so separation of ripe berries is necessary.

Processing Coffee
There are two methods that are commonly used to process coffee; the wet method, and the dry method.

The dry method of processing coffee involves directly drying the whole fruit before removing its outer layers. Green berries are separated by hand using a sieving process and then the whole berry is laid out in the sun to dry, or put into a drying machine. If sun drying is used it takes about four weeks. After the berries are dry they are sent to a mill for hulling (removing the outer layer to expose the green bean).

The other commonly used processing technique is referred to as the wet method. In this case the green beans are taken out of the fruit before drying. The berries are put into a machine that separates the ripe fruit from the unwanted ones. After sorting, the berries either ferment in large water tanks before going on to separation and drying, or go onto machine assisted separator that removes the outer layers immediately. After separation the green beans are dried

Beyond processing the coffee is: shipped, roasted, and then packaged for consumers.

The next time you turn on that espresso coffee machine, or your fully automatic espresso machine you now know how those roasted beans you just ground up, got there!