Know Your Beans

You know nuts if you don't know them beans. We all yearn for that full-bodied perfect cup of coffee when we wake up every morning. However, without a basic understanding of what a coffee bean is, and how various types of beans can affect the final taste of your coffee, it is near impossible to brew the perfect cup of coffee. So let's start with the basics.

This is a picture of a coffee plant.

Coffee Plant

You don't actually see the beans growing on the plant. The fruits that you see on the plant are called coffee cherries. Coffee beans are the seeds inside these coffee cherries. Once the coffee cherries are picked, they are sent for processing through a mechanical husker, which separates the bean from the fruit. The beans obtained from this process and then dried, sized, sorted, graded and selected, usually all by hand.

Trolled by the bean.

There are a total of seventy-three species of coffee plants, but only three have commercial significance in today's world market: Arabica, Robusta and Liberica. 

Arabica: Arabica trees grow best at high altitudes, typically between twelve and twenty feet (3.7 and 6m) high. Most Arabica coffee picking happens by hand. This is partly due to its growth on mountainous land usually unreachable by machine but mostly because a human coffee picker, using a ladder or hook, chooses the ripest beans. Though Arabica naturally contains the least caffeine, it possesses the subtlest, more desirable flavors.

Robusta: Robustas are usually grown at lower elevations. They are easier to grow, produce higher yields, and are more disease resistant than the Arabica species. Coffee growers once touted Robusta, with twice Arabica's caffeine content, as Arabica's best replacement. However, they offer none of Arabica's flavor nuance and are generally of lower quality compared to Arabicas. This coffee type is sold and traded mainly as a commodity. Robusta's best attribute is its body.

Liberica: Today, Liberica thrives in Southeast Asia. But it has no real market penetration as its flavor does not match the best Arabica coffee and its per-plant yield is disappointing.

If you have been too lazy to read whatever I have just typed, do check out this video. Robert Henry introduces us to the world of coffee beans. Enjoy! And before I forget, do leave some comments behind. If this post has been helpful to you, do share it with your friends. If it has not been helpful, let me know how I can improve the content on my blog in the future. Thanks much!

Know Your Beans: An Introduction To The World Of... by VideojugFoodandDrink