With coffee being the centre of many households, we thought of sharing with you some Interesting facts about Raw Coffee beans.
Coffee Beans’ origin and the processing has everything to do with the taste that coffee produces. Ethiopia has produced some of the world’s most popular coffees and among them is the Coffea Arabica. This kind of coffee naturally prefers a steady amount of rainfall during the year. The coffee trees grow up to 15 feet but are often trimmed to enhance harvest. Its leaves are dark green and have a shiny surface. Coffee naturally grows as a small shrub.
The Raw Coffee Bean plant has flowers that are white and produces a fragrance and blooms at the same time. With time, coffee produces cherry-like fruits that turn from green to bright red when ripe. They are the ones which contain coffee beans inside them. Coffee is normally gathered by hand for harvest because the berries in each cluster ripen at different times so making mechanised harvest becomes impossible.
After harvest is done, the fleshy part of the fruit and the slimy thin covering around the raw coffee beans is removed and dried (using a variety of processes) leaving them with a green to brown colour. At this stage, the farmer is able to sell this green or raw coffee beans.
The roasting process of raw coffee beans is the most exciting part. It’s actually quite a science. The amount of time and temperature of the roaster plays a role in the final taste. The thrilling thing about this is that you can create your own signature blend by combining two or more coffee beans of different origins and taste. The coffee beans go through a chemical transformation during the roasting process. They actually lose up to 20% of their original weight but also almost double in volume.