So I was thinking the other day about that drink we all love so much, coffee. And it struck me that the bulk of us see the very end process of bringing a ‘cup’a’joe’ to the table, and wondered how much effort went into bringing the java juice to our taste buds.
A LOT, to be succinct.
It’s actually around a 5 year process from planting to drinking, with a few options at every step to have different outcomes in the drink.
1) Obviously is the planting of the plant. Temper that with the option of being planted in sun cultivation or under treetop canopy. Of course there are arguments to each choice there. Under a canopy is more eco-friendly, but slower in the growing and maturation of the beans. Field growing means the beans come to fruition much quicker, but it is argued that the canopy style produces a richer berry/bean. With the sheer volume of demand, I’m sure you understand why the bulk of farms adopt the full sun method.
2) Patience is key. A coffee plant won’t start producing flowers, and hence berries until it is 3 to 4 years old. So if you thought about doing this in your back yard, that’s a long wait from planting to drink.
3) Picking the berries is next, and there are two methods. Strip picking, which can be compared to the cotton picker, and cleans the tree by machine. Or selective picking, where a person has to go through and will pick only the ripe berries. This means you have to rotate trees every few days, but generally this is a better method, as under ripe beans aren’t picked.
4) Processing – Wet or Dry
Wet processing involves the washing and cleaning of the bean from the berry.
Also two options, fermenting the beans in water to remove the fruit from the bean, and machine assisted, which scrubs the fruit from the bean as well.
Both produce extra water waste which needs to be considered as a byproduct.
Dry Processing is the oldest method and used on over 95% of Arabica beans from the largest coffee producing nations. The berries are spread in the sun and rotated over up to a 4 week period to dry and remove the fruit to the right point.
5) Hulling. Once dried from either of the processes above, coffee needs to be de-hulled to remove any remaining layers of the fruit to leave just the bean.
6) Polishing, which is both a final cleaning of the inner layer as much as it is a preventative method of chaff, roasting byproduct. Chaff can overheat the bean, and cause some nasty flavors in a roast. So while it may seem extraneous, and optional, I want those still green beans polished.
7) Sorting by size would be next, where through a couple of machines, the bean is sorted by size and weight. Sorting out beans and anything that accidentally made it through the earlier processes, heavier beans are kept, and lighter ones eliminated. Part of that process actually uses a vibrating table to have the heavier denser beans by gravity shake to one side and the light ones end up on the other. Think Hungry Hungry Hippo times 1000.
8) Color sorting comes next, with off colored or in any other way defective beans get tossed out. You can see the selective process for beans doesn’t happen just at the tree when picking. It’s almost a continual process of eliminating ‘off beans’, so that the cup that you get is done to whatever exacting demands that farmer or roaster have set forth. Obviuously, the more demanding will mean a higher cost.
9) Grading. Once sorted by all of these other standards, then the coffee is graded upon those sorting processes. All kinds of criteria are used in this, from where it was grown, to the size of the bean, to the color, etc. This will directly bring about the cost also that I touched on in step 8.
10) Coffee then gets aged. This is determined by what the farmer/producer/roaster have set forth as ideal for them. It ranges anywhere from 6 months up to even 8 years by some for certain types of coffee. This actually started when coffee was grown in other areas to mimic how long it used to take to be imported from Yemen where all coffee came through that area to Europe. Although the general consensus is that most coffee deteriorates in quality in 12 months after processing.
11) Optional decaffeination. I know, “Why?”. But at this point, the bean can be decaffeinated if one chooses that type of bean.
12) Roasting – perhaps the key step. This is where the bean changes from a green seed more or less, to a coffee bean. The bean changes chemically to work for the brewing process, and this is where the magic happens, more or less.
Be it light roast to dark, the bean is ready to go at this point.
13) Packing it for shipment. Using of course vacuum sealed bags for the freshest beans from roast to you(beans deteriorate very quickly if left in an unsealed area), the beans are packed for shipment.
14) Finally, it's off to the point of destiny to be ground fine for an espresso, or course for a drip cup, and brewed to your personal perfection of drink.
Who knew that there was that much work that went into your average cup of coffee, and up to 5 years of planning? If you are a roaster or grower, we’d love to hear what methods mentioned here you use, or if you do something completely different.
Mike
Whole Latte Love Sales
I usually take regional feuds about as seriously as a Sunday morning comic strip. North or South, Tupac or Biggie...If you ask me it all boils down to personal taste. But, that's not to say that geographic preferences don't exist. With that in mind, let's talk coffee! 
Here’s a concept that’ll knock your beans off, Brazilian designer Lucas Vieira has created a unique workstation for the truly java obsessed. The Coffee Office, which bears more than a passing resemblance to a giant mug, comes equipped with wifi access, a/v features, and a touch-screen computer. But, this baby really earns its keep with the built-in coffeemaker, which lets users choose from assorted flavors preprogrammed into the unit. Common spaces, such as malls and airports, have been suggested as potential targets of this espresso-based cubicle. 
