Chapter 1 : Get-to-know the Coffee Bean
Let's get down to the basics of coffee beans.
Varieties
The two species of coffee beans in the world are harvested from Coffea Arabica and Coffea Robusta, which produced beans that offer coffees’ distinct personality.
Arabica
The unroasted oval shaped beans that produced blueberries smell. Once roasted, the smell is described as perfumey with fruits and sugar tones.
Robusta
The smaller and rounder shaped beans conjure raw-peanutty smell and grainy fragrance. Once roasted, the smell is described as slightly woody.
ENVIRONMENTS
Here are the ideal conditions required to optimally grow coffee beans.
CLIMATE
Best with temperature ranging from 15-24 °C for Arabica beans & 18-36 °C for Robusta beans.
SHADE VS. SUN
Grown under the shade of trees for Arabica beans & directly under the sun for Robusta beans.
ALTITUDE
Equatorial regions at an altitude range of 600-2200m for Arabica beans & 0-800m for Robusta beans.
SOILS
Fertile volcanic soils, rich in nutrients and moisture retention capability to rapidly store and drain excess water.
HARVESTING
Methods include selective and stripe harvesting. One is done through handpicking and the other by mechanical stripping from the tree at once.
PERFECT TIME FOR HARVESTING
The perfect time span to harvest coffee crops is about six months until coffee cherries are fully ripen with bright and red glossy colour with firm texture.
PERFECT WAY FOR HARVESTING
Since they don’t mature all at once, harvesting is best done through selective picking, where the picker hand-selects the ripest and best cherries for harvesting.
Chapter 2 : The Journey Process
Discover the journey of coffee beans from processing to grinding.
PROCESSING
Ripe, overripe and undeveloped coffee cherries are sorted and processed through the wet and dry process.
WET PROCESS
Water immersion sorting is used to separate unripe & ripe cherry fruits. The skins are removed by machine pressing through a screen in water & then put to dry under the sun.
DRY PROCESS
Unripe, overripe & damaged cherries are sorted, placed and spread out in the sun for 4-weeks and left to dry to get the optimum moisture content.
SELECTING
A rigorous selection of beans is done by picking out the defects, unripe, overripe coffee beans to bring the best coffee taste for you.
GOOD BEANS
Good beans are visible from the green colour beans with a similar shape without defects.
DEFECT BEANS
Defect coffee beans are visible from the immature, discoloured or disfigure beans and holes from insect damage.
