From Bush to Brew

The Plant

Coffee is grown as a tree, which resembles a camellia bush with jasmine-like blooms. In the wild, the evergreen arabica plant grows up to 20 feet, however, when cultivated is pruned to approximately 6 feet to maximize its yield and to make harvest easier. 

Coffea arabica is not the only type of plant used to produce coffee; Coffea robusta is another species commonly used (common being an apt term since most robusta is not typically considered high quality enough to produce gourmet coffee; it is used to produce lower-quality coffee such as brands produced on a very large scale and sold at many supermarkets).  One exception is the Kopi Lowak coffee, which is a very unusual gourmet robusta coffee processed by the Asian Palm Civet, a cat-sized mammal found in southeast Asia.  This coffee retails for well over $120 US per pound.

There are several varietals of Coffea Arabica, including C. arabica typica, C. arabica bourbon, C. arabica caturra, and C. arabica catuai.  The typica is the base plant for many other varietals, produces a small amount of coffee cherries, but yields an excellent cup of coffee.  The bourbon is named for the Isle of Bourbon (or Reunion Island) where it was discovered.  This variety has a higher yield of fruit but produces less coffee, since each cherry is denser and more likely to fall off from wind and rain.  This variety does well at higher altitudes.  The caturra is a mutation of the bourbon, discovered in Brazil.  It has performs well at lower altitudes but though it yields fewer cherries at higher altitudes, the quality increases.  The catuai is a hand-engineered hybrid of the Mundo Novo (a natural hybrid of typica and bourbon discovered in Brazil) and the caturra.  This is a high yielding plant that is great for areas with strong winds or rain because the cherries more stubbornly stay on the branches. 

The last two varietals are highly prized in the specialty gourmet coffee market.  These are the Maragogype and the Blue Mountain.  A natural mutation of the typica plant, the maragogype produces a very large bean, to which it credits its name - the "elephant bean."  It was first discovered in in the early 1990's.  Blue Mountain is a famous varietal that thrives at very high altitudes and is very disease resistant.  It produces a bean with a very high flavor profile, and was first grown in .  It has now adapted to grow well in Kona, Hawaii, but cannot adapt to most growing areas and produce the high quality bean for which it is known.

The Fruit

The tiny coffee berries form in clusters at the base of the leaves of the tree, and take half a year or more to mature on the branches of the plant before harvest. When ripe the so-called "cherries" are picked and processed by either the wet or dry method.  Harvest typically occurs between August and January, depending on the region and the altitude of the farm.  Frequently cherries ripen at varying stages, and at the top coffee farms and estates they are hand-picked only when ripe, whether it is in the beginning of the harvest or the end.


The Bean

Within each "cherry" there are typically two coffee beans nestled flat sides together protected by the skin and pulp of the fruit. It is the process of gently extracting the beans from the remainder of the fruit that is described as being "wet" or "dry."  Wet processing involves soaking the beans and allowing some level of fermentation to occur.  What is left is then allowed to dry, usually in the sun, while being raked.  Once dry, the remains are beaten to remove the beans from the pulp, mucilage, and other leftovers from the fruit.  The green beans are then separated and screened thoroughly, often by hand, before being checked for quality and packaged into barrels or bags for distribution.  Dry processing differs in that it involves drying the cherry on raised screens or patios, with or without some level of mechanical or hand-removal of the fruit and mucilage to expose the parchment-covered cherry.  Since the parchment contains sugar, fermentation still occurs, though at a slower rate than the wet-processed beans.  Dry processing is the traditional method used in Ethiopia as well as parts of Central America, and is becoming a more widely-used technique in small farms to add new and different flavor profiles to their coffee.
 

The Journey of the Green Bean

The green bean, once it has been screened for quality, is put into a marked bag or barrel and shipped to a roaster or a bean broker. Green beans may be stored for a year without losing quality.


The Roasting Process

A large-scale roaster (or even a small portable home roaster) may be used to roast the green beans so that they may be brewed. Before roasting green beans are typically greenish-brown and have a somewhat grassy smell. Roasting causes many complex chemical reactions to occur, much like baking.

At Ashley & Cooper Coffee Roasters, we use a Diedrich IR-12, which has a 12 kg or 30 lb maximum capacity (see photo at left, showing coffee cooling after roasting).  During roasting, there is a distinctive aroma released that pervades our facility...that of roasted chocolate, with a slightly sweet perfume.  Our roastmasters have between them 20 years experience roasting gourmet beans to their perfect state.  Each bean must be test roasted and cupped to find the perfect level of roasting.  This is because every bean has a different size, moisture content, density, and weight, depending on origin, screen-size, and whether it is a special bean such as the Peaberry, which is a round mutation with a denser bean.


The Brewing Process

To learn more about the specifics of the proper way to brew, and to taste the optimum and true flavor of your favorite coffee, refer to Brew the Perfect Cup.