How Coffee Gets From Around The World To Your Mug

The rich brew that you enjoy each morning begins as the seed of a cherry-like fruit grown on trees in one of the coffee growing regions of the world. Coffee plants come in two main varieties: Arabica, grown mostly in South American sub-tropical countries, and Robusta, grown in African and Asian countries. Have you ever wondered how those beans get from inside the cherry to your cup? It’s quite a journey from tree to mug.

Starting from a little seed…

Coffee plants need to grow for three to four years before they start producing fruit. On an established coffee plantation, that means that there will be about five years before a young tree can produce a useful harvest. The harvest looks nothing like coffee beans. Instead, the coffee bean grows as the seed inside a cherry. When a mature crop is ready for harvest, the cherries are a deep rich red.

On most coffee plantations in South America and Central America, the coffee beans are picked by hand. This is a labor-intensive process, but it means that every bean is carefully picked at the peak of its flavor. On some farms, particularly those in Brazil where the land is flat, the picking process has been mechanized. In either case, the coffee cherries are shipped from the fields to a central point where they are purchased and the processing for coffee beans begins.

Wet or dry, or a little of both…

There are three main methods of processing coffee beans to remove the fruit and get the nuggets of gold in the center, the seeds that we know as coffee beans. Most beans are processed using a wet method to remove the fruit and start cleaning the beans.

In a totally wet method, the coffee cherries are immersed in water. Any cherries that are bad or unripe will float to the top and can be skimmed off. What’s left is pressed through a screen, crushing the fruit and removing most of it. The beans will still have a great deal of fruit clinging to them. The remaining fruit is removed by one of two methods:

-Ferment and wash

The coffee beans are allowed to ferment, either in their own juices or in more water, loosening the fruit. This takes 24 to 36 hours. The end result is assessed by feel – the beans lose their slimy feel and acquire a rough, pebbled texture.

-Machine assisted wet processing

A newer method of wet processing uses far less water, and does not have as much of an environmental impact. This method uses machines to scrub the cherry stones and then washes them thoroughly with water.

No matter which process is used, the washed beans are then dried thoroughly in the sun, and then hulled to remove the silvery ‘parchment’ around each bean.

The dry processing method is far older. The cherries are spread in the sun on tables or patios in a single layer and sun-dried. It takes about four weeks for the beans to reach optimal dryness, and during that time the coffee cherries must be turned and raked by hand to keep them from mildewing and rotting. When they are sufficiently dry, the cherries are packed and shipped to a processing plant where the dried fruit is removed from the bean in one step by a hulling machine.

There is a hybrid method called the semi-dry process, in which the beans are first put through a wet wash to scrub most of the fruit away. The beans are spread in the sun to complete drying.

From seed to bean…

Once the seeds have dried, they’re put through a milling process. The cherries are hulled to remove anything that is left after the drying process, then cleaned and sorted by size, weight and quality. Most of the sorting is done by hand still, especially in South and Central America. In more modern plants, the first sorting is done by machines that sort by weight and size, then sorted by hand using color to determine quality.

The milled beans are packaged for shipment, usually in jute or sisal bags. They may be stored for up to a year before being roasted and blended. The trading process for the coffee beans began long before they were picked from the tree, with speculation and trends in coffee consumption fueling prices. Before any deals are struck, though, the coffee will be tasted and evaluated by a professional coffee cupper.

The cupper will first evaluate the beans visually. A small sample of the harvest will be roasted and brewed at various stages, and a final decision will be made about purchasing a particular batch.

Blends and roasts…

Most coffee varieties available are not made from a single type of bean from one plantation. The flavor of the finished coffee is affected by dozens of factors, including the soil, water and weather in which the beans were grown. Most coffees are a blend of beans from many different origins, combined by experts in flavor. Those blends will be developed from samples taken of entire batches of coffee which will be combined and roasted. Once a blend is satisfactory, the green coffee beans will be combined and roasted, then shipped in bulk to a packaging factory, where the beans will be packaged and shipped again, eventually ending up on your grocer’s or specialty coffee shop’s shelves for you to purchase and enjoy.