Preferred coffee brewing methods

I typically order fresh coffee from Trade Coffee. Trade maintains a network of roasters who deliver coffee which is significantly fresher than what you can buy in the grocery store. Fresh roasted coffee contains CO₂, which is a byproduct of the roasting process. Just roasted coffee can actually adversely affect the brew. Excess dissolved CO₂ can add an overly acidic taste to coffee. As coffee sits, it naturally degases and oxidation can start to change the flavors of the coffee.1 2 It is for this reason that getting access to fresh, whole beans, is so important. I got into fresh coffee during the Covid19 Pandemic when I started to order Blue Bottle Coffee.

Steps in Coffee Production

Planting

This might seem obvious to some, but when you drink coffee, the beans you use to prepare the coffee are also the seeds used to plant a coffee plant. Unprocessed coffee seeds germinate and grow into a plant. Early on seedlings are shaded from direct sunlight and watered frequently. Coffee seedlings are typically transplanted during the rainy season to allow the seedlings to establish strong root systems. Once planted it typically takes 3-4 years3, depending on the variety, before a plant will bear fruit, which are called ‘cherries’.

Varieties of Coffee

Not written yet.

Harvesting

As the coffee cherries approach maturity, they transition from unripe green fruit to ripened (red) cherries. The cherries rippen faster at lower altitudes where the temperature is higher3. Because the cherries tend to mature at different rates, it often doesn’t make sense to use mechanical harvesting. When hand picking, it typically takes 3 different pickings to harvest all the viable cherries from a farm. The hand picking process tends to result in a higher quality finished product since all cherries are harvested near peak ripeness. Some farms do use machines to pick the cherries in a process known as “strip picking”. In most parts of the world there is only a single annual harvest, but some areas like Kenya and Colombia (where the climate is warmer), there are two annual harvest, which generate a main and secondary crop.

Processing

Dry Method

Oldest process for preparing cherries to be turned into beans that are used to make coffee. The method can also be called ‘unwashed’ or ‘natural’. Fresh cherries are laid out across a large layer to sun dry for 15 to 20 days3. The intent is to keep the cherries dry, so they are placed on drying beds so they do not contact the ground, to allow for air circulation. The cherries are also raked to ensure they don’t sit, which can allow a fermentation process to occur. This is undesirable for dry processed coffee. Once the cherries are “dried”, it is relivitivly easy to remove the outer skin from the beans. These beans are ready for sale.

Wet Method

A newer method of processing coffee. This process uses water to move the beans along through the process via a pulping machine which squeezes the skin off of the beans without damaging them. After the skin is removed, the beans are still covered in mucilage. The beans are left to soak in tanks of water that allow the sticky mucilage to dissolve. After this process, the beans are drained and dried in the sun for a couple of days before being ready for sale.

Honey Method

This hybrid method begins in the same fashion as the Wet method, where the cherries are sent through the pulping machine. However, the beans are then allowed to dry without further washing or soaking to remove the mucilage. When drying honey processed coffee, the drying can be stopped at 3 distinct stages producing either ‘yellow’, ‘red’, or ‘black’ honey processed beans. Honey processed coffees tend to have more complexity of flavor after roasting4.

Roasting

Not written yet.

Interesting Coffee Diversions

Local Philadelphia Roasters I’d Like to check out
Jimmy’s Coffee in Toronto.

References

On Coffee

Steps in Coffee Production

Interesting Coffee Diversions