How is coffee grown?
Coffee beans are the seeds of coffee cherries grown on trees. Factors such as soil content, temperature, protection from sun exposure, rainfall, and altitude all contribute to the quality and flavour of the coffee.
How is coffee processed?
A large amount of work must be done to remove the fruit of the coffee cherry and dry the seed to prepare for shipping and roasting. There are three main processing methods:
Dry/Natural Process - This involves drying coffee cherries whole in the sun before removing the seed using mechanical methods.
Washed Process - This involves removing the fruit from coffee cherries with water and mechanical methods before drying the coffee seeds in the sun.
Honey Process - Also known as semi-washed or pulped natural. This involves removing the pulp and skin of the fruit of the coffee cherry but leaving the inner layer known as the mucilage intact before drying. This is somewhere between the natural and washed processing methods. No actual honey is involved.
What is fermentation and how does it affect coffee?
Fermentation is a metabolic chemical process where microbes break down substances -mostly sugar- into alcohol or acid. Controlling and experimenting with fermentation is one of the latest trends in coffee processing.
This is quite a polarising process, some enthusiasts enjoy the interesting flavours achieved through fermenting coffee while some prefer more ’traditional’ processing methods, often criticising heavily processed coffee for tasting somewhat ‘artificial’. When executed well, fermentation can help accentuate the sweeter and fruitier notes in a coffee. However over-fermented coffee will often lead to losses in desirable natural characteristics of the coffee and results in a ‘chemical’ flavour in the cup.
How is green coffee bought and sold?
Unfortunately, the global trade of coffee has had a long history and association with colonialism and exploitation, with a lot of these practices still persisting to this day. The best specialty coffee businesses aim for more transparency and fairness in how their coffee is sourced, with a direct-trade relationship between roaster and producer becoming increasingly popular to create a situation mutually beneficial for both parties. Most specialty roasters tend to source their coffee from green coffee merchants who ideally buy directly from producers, but quite often buy from other merchants usually based in the countries of origin.
There are also a number of certification systems such as Fairtrade attempting to regulate coffee quality, sustainability, and fairness with mixed levels of success. James Hoffmann has an excellent video on YouTube exploring the complexities of coffee certifications. Most specialty coffee businesses tend to pay little attention to certification with the exception of organic coffee, with companies like Dukes Coffee Roasters committing to only sourcing organic coffee in an effort to utilise more environmentally sustainable farming practices. More information on this can be found on their website.
How does roasting affect coffee?
Simply put, roasting coffee is applying heat to raw green coffee seeds to produce flavour and aroma when beans are ground and brewed with water. Coffee roasting is a complex process involving a range of chemical reactions but is often characterised into three main categories: light, medium, and dark. In specialty coffee, we often work with light to medium roast profiles to highlight the natural characteristics of coffee.
Generally speaking, the lighter a coffee is roasted the more acidity is retained. The darker you roast the more the sugars in the coffee are caramelised, we also see increased Maillard reactions leading to more perceived sweetness and bitterness. With even darker roasts, we see more carbonisation and the breakdown of more organic compounds resulting in loss of sweetness and aroma, and an increase in bitterness and dryness. Personal preference plays a large role in how people like their coffee roasted with pros and cons associated with each roasting style.
What is that animal poo coffee and is it good?
We get asked this question a lot! Probably from a mix of pop culture and the sheer absurdity of it. Unfortunately, this style of coffee - more commonly known as Kopi Luwak is a terrible and unethical way to drink coffee. What started off as a cultural and traditional way of drinking coffee in Indonesia has now become a commoditised product. For starters, there is no way an animal (most often a Civet cat) that eats, digests and expels the coffee will do a better job than hard-working farmers producing high-quality coffee. So there is no way to justify that price and claim it produces a good coffee. On top of that, people are now exploiting these animals and cage-farming them to sell their coffee at a higher price. Our opinion… don’t do it!
