Coffee: From Plant to Cup

Coffee comes a long way from the coffee farms where they are grown to the cup where it settles in a brew to cap a meal or to simply pass the time away.

Farming

Coffee seeds are planted in nurseries to produce seedlings. Seedling is transplanted at 6-8 months. 3 to 4 years after planting, coffee produces its first harvest. Coffee trees are pruned after harvests and can live for up to 35 years.

Milling

The first part of milling process is wet pulping. During this process the cherry skin is removed from the coffee cherry by a special mechanical equipment. After this process is complete, the coffee is now in “parchment” form. The parchment is then placed in large tanks of water to be fermented for a period of twelve to eighteen hours. The next process involves drying the parchment by it in a machine that removes all the mucilage from the parchment and leaves it clean. It is then rinsed and placed on wooden drying decks until it reaches the right moisture content. The final process is what we refer to as the dry mill process. In this process the parchment that has been wet milled and dried and is turned it into raw green coffee.

Sorting

After undergoing mill processing, coffee beans are sorted: the large from the small, the perfect from the damaged, the heavy from the light, the hard from the airy. Most buyers prefer the bigger and heavier beans and are wiling to pay a premium for every sack.

Cupping

When the polished and sorted beans leave the mills enroute to the cities and cafés, the next stop is the cupping house, where tasters or cuppers grade and select coffee samples.

Roasting

Coffee beans are heated to temperatures over 400oF when roasted. As the moisture escapes the beans, their color gradually changes from green, to gold, then to brown. As coffee lovers would say, there’s nothing like drinking home-grown, home-dried, home-roasted, and home-cooked coffee.

Blending

A Blending refers to the process of mixing the different coffee varieties (Arabica, Robusta, Liberica, Excelsa, Moka, Bourbon, Martinique, high-grown, etc.). A “blend” created by a careful process of mixing preferred coffee varieties often becomes a coffee shop’s house specialty.

Brewing

This is the process of “letting the coffee out of the bag” and creating a fascinating brew or concoction.  The person in-charged of doing this is known as the “barista”.  A barista is required to know at least the basic gourmet coffee preparations such as espresso, espresso machiatto, espresso con panna, café americano, cappuccino, café latte.

The coffee shops also expected them to learn their special cold and iced blended coffee concoctions.

He is also skilled in the proper use and maintenance of his machine.