Do you love coffee as much as we do? Have you ever wondered what path the coffee beans take to dissolve in your cup? You will learn about this and other interesting facts about natural bean coffee from our article.
About natural coffee beans
Before turning into a rich espresso, natural bean coffee goes through several stages:
1. Collecting coffee beans
There are two ways to collect coffee berries: manual and mechanical. The manual method is more laborious and allows you to achieve a better result: the picker, or picker, picks only berries at the peak of maturity.
With the mechanical method of harvesting, special combines are used. The main advantage of this method is speed. The disadvantage is that the machine collects not only ripe, but also green berries.
2. Coffee processing
The next stage – the grains are separated from the pulp. To do this, use one of two processing methods: dry – natural, or washed. The first is used in regions with an arid climate. The second is in areas with high humidity.
Dry processing is as natural as possible: the berries, laid out on a flat surface, dry out under the scorching sun. In the process, the grains are soaked in the juice of the pulp. So the taste of coffee becomes deeper and acquires berry-citrus notes.
The washed processing process is more complex. First, the berries are soaked in water so that the pulp softens and is easier to separate. Then the grains are specially cleaned of gluten. And then dry.
3. Roasting
At this stage, green coffee beans not only acquire an appetizing hue, but also reveal their unique aroma. There are many degrees of roast, which can be divided into three main groups: medium, light and dark.
Roasted coffee beans of light and medium roast have a milder taste. Dark roasts tend to have a lot of bitterness.
4. Packing coffee beans
To draw some conclusions about the quality of coffee, just look at the packaging. A vacuum or foil bag allows you to save the beneficial properties and aroma of the grains better and longer – up to 1.5 years.
Natural coffee beans are the basis of one of the most popular drinks in the world. Therefore, there is always a risk of purchasing low-quality products with the addition of impurities – chicory, walnut shells, clay, etc.
How to distinguish good coffee? Here are some recommendations:
- A suspiciously low price is one of the signs of a fake. After all, high-quality coffee cannot be too cheap.
- Coffee is the case when it is even necessary to “judge by the wrapper”. Most often, the quality of the packaging corresponds to the quality of the product. Bad printing, as a rule, also gives out a fake.
- Finally, it is better to choose coffee from trusted producers who value their reputation and strictly control the production process in order to offer the consumer a high-quality product as a result.
Classification of coffee beans
There are many of them: from the type of tree – Arabica, Robusta, Liberica – to the age of the product – new, old harvest, etc. The international coffee market also uses quality classification, which includes such types of coffee as:
- Mild is an Arabica coffee grown in the highlands. Because of the noble delicate taste, it is called “soft”.
- Robusta coffee varieties. Inferior to Arabica in taste, but superior in caffeine content.
Coffee is so unique and multifaceted that you want to learn more and more about it. Do you agree? Then you will be interested in the facts about which we will tell. So:
In total, there are about 90 types of coffee trees, but only 2 of them are of industrial importance – Arabica and Robusta.
- Why are berries harvested at the peak of maturity? By the time of ripening, the grains absorb useful substances from the pulp, as well as sugar, which gives them a sweetish taste.
- An experienced picker picks 45-90 kg of berries from a coffee tree in 1 day. This is enough to produce 10-20 kg of coffee.
- Caffeine is found not only in grains, but also in the pulp. By the way, a drink called cascara, or coffee tea, is also prepared from the dried pulp.
- What is the secret of the multifaceted taste of coffee? Coffee beans contain over 100 chemical compounds. For example, tannins give the drink astringency. Organic acids – citrus or berry sourness. And caffeine is responsible for the bitterness.
- The taste and aroma of a particular type of coffee depends on factors such as: soil and climatic conditions of cultivation, the degree of roasting and grinding. That is why classic espresso, americano or cappuccino can endlessly surprise you with a variety of flavors.
Coffee beans
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