Seed to Cup. (Make it count)
Hey Steemians!
You wonder where does my coffee come from? Or maybe, what is the story behind each cup of coffee? Well, on this occasion I’d like to tell you all the entire process which the coffee needs to get from seed in the field to our table, here we go:
GERMINATION
This is the first stage of this beautiful process, among other words we can say that it’s the time that is sowing the seed, such seed late into two to three months to become a plant and into three to four years to plant coffee and begin to produce. This process is very important that’s why the plant needs all that time and the best care possible.
FLOWERING PERIOD
On this stage, the plant begins to bloom then these flowers become coffee cherries during the time of 35 weeks. The coffee flowering can be considering a beautiful and scenic process.
HARVEST
Collection of the coffee harvest is a hard work, coffee cherries are usually ready to be picked up in a time of 4 to 5 years of having been sown, at this point the coffee is very similar to a cherry and when they turn in a reddish or yellowish is when they are at their optimum time to be collected. When we refer to an intense work is because in the process of harvesting the coffee growers, you must select cherry by cherry ensuring each one of them are in a good condition thus we ensure the quality of the coffee, there are farmers who are not so demanding when choosing cherries and pass their hand through the plant bringing the good ones and mature, it isn’t recommended to mix the berries with the greens since it can greatly affect the quality of our coffee. It is important to note that if the pickup was selected cherry by cherry, the coffee growers pass after several days to harvest the cherries which have matured.
MILLING
The milling of coffee is basically based on get the cherry coffee bean which is composed on several components; the exocarp (skin), mesocarp (pulp), mucilage, endocarp (parchment) and spermoderm (silver skin). Each of these components should be removed to get the bean. This process must be fast to avoid the deterioration of the grain.
There are several ways to perform this process but the most common are the following:
- DRY PROCESSING: The drying process is the most ancient of all and it is quite simple, the fruit must keep the pulp before the milling, then the cherries are chosen and cleaned, leaving out all those that are in bad condition, this is a process that must be done by hand. Finally these cherries are placed on a surface of concrete and they should be manually turned to make sure that the drying is uniform, all this process takes a time of 1 month (4 weeks).
- WET PROCESSING: With this method, the seed covering should be withdrawn before begin dried, it also requires a big amount of water and specific machinery unlike drying which is fully manual. When cherries are submerged in the water, all those that are mature or damaged float which greatly facilitates its collection. After having our selected cherries, they have to go through a coffee pulper machine which will remove the skin and part of the pulp the rest should be removed by a fermentation process in which we must be very aware because if we neglect the process, the coffee can take an undesirable flavors. At the end, the result is a processed cherry with its layer of parchment then it is placed to dry some time until the grain reaches between 10% and 12% moisture content.
There are other types of milling and processes which I’ll tell you later with the entire information but here I’d like to give you an idea.
STORAGE AND DISTRIBUTION
Before reaching the point of distribution, we can’t forget a very important step in this process and it is the STORAGE of coffee when this dry, because it plays an important role for the conservation of the same, as well as the temperature, humidity of the environment and the place where we store the coffee, in this way, we guarantee that the coffee is not affected by bacteria or fungi which is exposed without a proper storage. Now we have green beans ready to be exported or sold in the market, and they are handed out to the roasters.
SELECTION AND ROASTING
Before roasting green coffee, we have a very important task which is the selection process that simply consist in cleaning up our coffee of all defects, broken and black beads, fermented cherries, sticks and remains of parchment, I personally think that’s very important since it is a way of ensuring the quality of the final cup, this labor should be done by hand and grain by grain, I know it can become a bit tedious. I leave here a picture of my authorship of the mesh used to make this work at my workplace.
COFFEE READY FOR ROASTING
After having all our coffee selected, the next step is roasting. Here is where literally the magic occurs, the person in charge of roasting coffee or toaster proceeds to place certain amount of green beans in a coffee roaster and after the approximate time of 12 to 15 minutes, the green coffee beans passes to be roasted coffee. By the shortness of the explanation, it seems to be easy but it isn’t, a toaster must be a person with extensive knowledge of the coffee world, someone who has studied since coffee’s inception and he/she must have much experience in this world. There are several types of roasting, which depend on time and development having in the roaster, and according to the profiles that the toaster wants to achieve in his coffee, the most common are the light, medium and dark roast, but in other subject we will talk about them. I leave here a few pictures of my authorship of the roaster machine used to make this where I work.
This area is dedicated to roasting coffee that is used to store and which is for sale too, whenever is roasted the local is wrapped up by an aroma of freshly roasted coffee and customers can come, enjoy the process and learn about it and it’s very rewarding
GRINDING AND PREPARATION PROCESS
At this point, we have our coffee ready for consumption, and there is a kind of grinding for each type of preparation. Each form of brewing significantly impacts the flavor in your cup. The funny part of coffee is to experiment with different roasting, grinding techniques and preparation methods to discover the true variety of coffee.
On the one hand we have a coffee prepared through an Espresso Machine this leaves all the coffee-based beverages known as Capuccino, Latte and Mokaccino among others. I leave here a picture of my authorship of an Espresso made by an Espresso Machine at my workplace.
On the other hand we have alternative methods of brewing coffee, better known as casting or brew among the acquaintances we have the French Press, Chemex, Dripper V60, Syphon, Aeropress and the tradictional Guayoyera (which is in each venezuelan home).
It is very important to highlight the work of the Barista at the end of this chain which is responsible for the final preparation of the coffee, the Barista must be a person who feels love and belonging to the coffee and everything that we’ve been dating, he must be in constant learning and growth and that only can be achieved through the study, as we could give us account a good coffee is not achieved overnight in the morning and the same case is with Baristas, it takes much study and practice, trial an error, and have people always guiding them on a good path.
Certainly there is a long way from seed to cup each process adds value and quality to the coffee. It is amazing all the work that lies behind a cup of coffee, I’d like to close the thread with this phrase that today I use for this post but it can be used to change and improve many things in our lives.
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Thank you for having taken the time to read my post, all your comments are welcome and if you like don’t forget to vote, more material is coming I promise.
Great post!
Thanks a lot Lola!