I’m boldly going to assume that most of you have had a cup of coffee before, or at the very least met someone who has refused to speak with you in the morning because they haven’t had theirs yet. The fragrant dark beverage is one of the most popular in the world, rivaled only by tea (not counting water). It’s estimated that we consume somewhere between one and two billion cups of coffee per day. Entire articles could be written on what makes coffee so appealing (and they have been), but today we’ll look at something different – at how the addictive drink finds its way to your favorite café in the first place.
The coffee “beans” (deceptively named due to their appearance) that are used to brew the addictive concoction are in fact seeds of coffee trees. It takes approximately 3 years (depending on the variety) for the sprouts of the plant to grow into a fruit-bearing tree. The fruits themselves are berries which typically contain two pits – the part of the plant that is eventually turned into coffee.
About 8 months after flowering the green cherries turn a bright red color, indicating their ripeness. Most coffee beans come from hand-picked berries to ensure that only ripe berries are harvested. A good berry picker can gather between 50 and 100 kilograms of the fruit a day, which adds up to somewhere between 10 and 20 kg of beans daily. The coffee cherries start being processed within the first day to ensure their freshness.
The processing includes fermentation, removing the flesh of the fruit from the pits, and drying the beans. These procedures last from days to weeks, depending on the methods used. After they are processed the berries are put in storage.
So, how long does it take for the beans to come from the plantation to the supermarket? You might think it’s only a matter of days, but the transportation and preparation of any kind of produce can get a lot more complicated than that. For example, it takes some apples up to a year from the day they’re picked until the day they appear on the shelves of grocery stores. Coffee, on the other hand, can be stored for up to 6 months before it is shipped to its destination.
Coffee beans are traditionally packed into jute bags – distinctive brown 60 kg bags in which coffee has been transported and measured by for more than 200 years. These are nowadays being replaced by enormous one-tonne plastic sacks that improve transport speed and efficiency.
The largest exporters of coffee are Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia. In total, about 70 countries worldwide produce coffee, but the biggest consumers of coffee in the world aren’t the ones in which coffee is grown. While the US consumes the largest amount (about 45% of all coffee produced), they are only 22nd in the amount of coffee drunk per capita. The greatest consumers of coffee are in fact the Scandinavian countries, with Finland in first place – they drink an average of 12 kg of coffee per person each year (compared to a “measly” 4 kg in the US).
When the beans arrive at their destination country they are taken off the boat and packed onto a truck or train. From there, they are taken to the various local coffee suppliers where they are roasted and packed. The reason why the beans are roasted towards the end of their journey is that roasting (heating up the beans to about 200°C which also turns them brown) brings caffeol (the oil inside the bean which gives coffee its distinct fragrance) to the surface and speeds up the oxidation process – the beans are best just the first few days after roasting.
Then the coffee beans are finally shipped to local supermarkets and cafes, ending their long journey by being ground up, mixed into hot water, and poured into your cup so that you can enjoy the simple things in life.
Glass half cool 