Have you ever wondered what goes into your favorite blend of coffee? How does it reach the supermarket or coffee shop for you to enjoy? It all starts with the coffee plant. This 30-feet high tropical shrub lives in warm places and has white flowers. The flowers are later replaced by small red fruits that resemble berries. As the berries grow, they change from golden brown to red or yellow when ripe. Each berry has two seeds, which are called beans. These beans are rich in caffeine and each coffee bush produces 0.3-1 kilogram (0.7-2.2 pounds) of beans every year.
There are about 70 species of the coffee plant Coffea ranging from dwarf bushes to 40-foot tall trees. But commercial coffee comes from only two sources: Arabian coffee (Coffea arabica) and coffee “robusta” (Coffea canephora). Of the two, the best coffee beans are those of Arabica. They come from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia which is where the word coffee supposedly originated. Robusta coffee contains more caffeine but is less tasty.
In spite of today’s modern machinery, coffee bean remains harvested by hand. After the coffee berries are selected and washed, they are dried and husked using either of two methods. In the traditional dry method, the beans are dried out in the sun. When they have only 12 percent water or if the beans’ husks have shriveled, they are hulled using the hand or a machine.
In the wet method, the beans are contained in pulping devices to eliminate most of the husk. Following fermentation, the beans are taken to hulling machines where mechanical stirrers remove the last covering and give the beans a smooth finish. Once cleaned and sorted, the beans are roasted in big ovens and ground into a powder. Next they are packaged and end up in the supermarket.
To make instant coffee, coffee beans are ground and brewed in percolators. During this process, an extract forms and is sprayed into a cylinder. As it goes down the cylinder, the extract mixes with warm air that turns it into a dry powder.