A lot of us drink coffee each day, but have you ever wondered what goes in to making that delightful cup of Coffee?
It begins with the harvest
Coffee trees bloom with lovely white flowers in the spring, which then give way to little green coffee beans. These beans grow over the next months, until they ripen into a red fruit referred to as coffee cherry in the fall. This cherry should be harvested manually, which is an extremely laborious process.
Coffee beans ripen at different rates, so one branch will often have both green and also red beans on it. To have the best high quality coffee, skilled pickers will very carefully choose just the ripest beans from each tree, leaving the younger beans for later.
Pulping and drying
After the cherry is accumulated the first processing step is to remove the external red skin of the fruit. This process, referred to as pulping, is completed by a machine having a cylinder and spinning knobs that pull the skin off of the bean.
After the beans have been pulped they're laid out under the sun to dry up. This drying procedure takes about a week, as the beans need to attain a moisture content of a maximum of 10%. Special drying houses are usually made to expose the coffee to sun while protecting it from rain. Additionally, the coffee has to be raked every several hours to turn the beans and promote even drying.
Hulling and roasting
To keep the process, coffee parchment is run through a hulling device that strips the very last layer of skin away from the beans. The outcome is referred to as green bean, and is a pricey product that may be sold by itself.
After the coffee is hulled it has to be classified. The sorting process classifies beans depending on size and weight using a gravity table. Once the coffee is classified it moves on to the roasting procedure. Roasting is done as close to the period of sale as possible to prevent degradation of the flavor. Roasted coffee can be light, medium, full, or somewhere in between. In the end, around 8 pounds of coffee cherry go into producing one pound of roasted coffee.
It begins with the harvest
Coffee trees bloom with lovely white flowers in the spring, which then give way to little green coffee beans. These beans grow over the next months, until they ripen into a red fruit referred to as coffee cherry in the fall. This cherry should be harvested manually, which is an extremely laborious process.
Coffee beans ripen at different rates, so one branch will often have both green and also red beans on it. To have the best high quality coffee, skilled pickers will very carefully choose just the ripest beans from each tree, leaving the younger beans for later.
Pulping and drying
After the cherry is accumulated the first processing step is to remove the external red skin of the fruit. This process, referred to as pulping, is completed by a machine having a cylinder and spinning knobs that pull the skin off of the bean.
After the beans have been pulped they're laid out under the sun to dry up. This drying procedure takes about a week, as the beans need to attain a moisture content of a maximum of 10%. Special drying houses are usually made to expose the coffee to sun while protecting it from rain. Additionally, the coffee has to be raked every several hours to turn the beans and promote even drying.
Hulling and roasting
To keep the process, coffee parchment is run through a hulling device that strips the very last layer of skin away from the beans. The outcome is referred to as green bean, and is a pricey product that may be sold by itself.
After the coffee is hulled it has to be classified. The sorting process classifies beans depending on size and weight using a gravity table. Once the coffee is classified it moves on to the roasting procedure. Roasting is done as close to the period of sale as possible to prevent degradation of the flavor. Roasted coffee can be light, medium, full, or somewhere in between. In the end, around 8 pounds of coffee cherry go into producing one pound of roasted coffee.
About the Author:
Good quality coffee may appear expensive at times, but just look back on the very long journey those beans took to get to you and visit my website for more coffee information: Green Coffee Bean Extract.