The Life of the Coffee Bean
While most people are aware that coffee comes from beans, few people realize the many steps it takes to go from a plant to the delicious green coffee beans you can buy in bulk from our online store! Read on to find out the humble life of the coffee bean and how it plays a role in your coffee roasting process!
Coffee Beginnings
The coffee plant is versatile, able to grow from seeds, cuttings, or shoots. However, only some climates work for this sensitive plan, requiring a careful range of temperatures and plenty of water. A coffee plant takes about 5 years to grow from seedling to mature plant, at which time it can produce enough coffee beans to make a pound of roasted coffee!
The Fruit
Coffee beans are actually hidden inside of the fruit of the coffee plant. Often referred to as cherries, this fruit looks like a crabapple or very small cherry, and ranges from green to red. The best-quality coffee is handpicked to ensure that only the best and most ripe cherries are selected for roasting.
Cherry Processing
To get to the “beans,” the fruit and husks of the coffee cherries must be removed. This can be done in the traditional dry method, laying the coffee cherries out in the sun or another hot, dry place, turning them regularly, and ensuring they reach about 11% moisture content. Another method uses water to soften the outer fruit, then the beans are put through a pulping machine. After that, they are submerged into an enzyme solution that removes the outer layer and dried. These can be dried naturally, like the dry method, or dried in special drying machines for a faster process.
Quality Assurance
While these processes can be automated, having a human being involved in the process ensures the best quality. Those coffee roasters with the highest standard source their coffee beans from supplies who hand-sort and check for quality, such as discarding damaged or broken beans. Once the beans are ready, they are packed and shipped to coffee roasters around the world. Lavanta Coffee Roasters in New Jersey works to find the best-quality coffee producers around the world so we can share them in our store and sell those high-quality green coffee beans online!
