How Are Coffee Beans Grown? What Is the Growing Period of Coffee? When Is Coffee Harvested?

The Origin of Coffee Beans

Where do coffee beans come from, and what do they go through? From planting to first fruit, a coffee tree takes 3-5 years. Trees aged 6-10 years are the most reliable bearers of fruit, and roughly the 15-20 years that follow form the main harvest period.

To plant coffee, farmers first prepare a seedbed of soil mixed with fertilizer and set the beans in one by one. After about 3 months, once the cotyledons have given way to true leaves, the seedlings move into pots; after 6-10 months they are transplanted to the plantation, ideally at the start of the rainy season. To shield them from direct sun, taller plants such as mango, banana, sunflower, or poplar are planted for shade.

Small white flowers smelling of jasmine bloom, and several months later fruit appears. Arabica cherries generally take 6-10 months to turn from green to yellow and finally deep red. The mature fruit clusters on the branches like cherries in shape and color - hence the name "coffee cherries."

Inside each cherry are two tightly joined seeds, or occasionally a single round bean - these are the raw coffee beans.

Coffee Harvesting

Coffee trees begin bearing about three to five years after sowing, and the following twenty years are their peak production. For picking convenience, farmers usually prune the trees to around 2 meters; taller trees would need ladders, which wastes time and can damage the branch structure. Coffee is planted alongside tall shade trees, which shelter and cool the plants by day and hold in warmth at night - which is why in coffee plantations you so often see low, bushy coffee trees interspersed with bananas or mangoes.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation: Popular Arabica Coffees

Coffee species come down to three: Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica - the three original species from which every coffee in the world descends. Arabica is the most numerous, with complex, refined flavors that make it the most popular; Robusta is intense and crema-rich, feeding most espresso blends and the instant coffee many of us grew up on; Liberica, of low commercial value, survives mainly in research collections. Virtually all specialty coffee on the market is Arabica, and because each origin stamps it with unique character, single-origin Arabica abounds. Here are FrontStreet Coffee's favorites.

The Hua Kui (Flower Queen) is built on Ethiopia's most common heirloom varieties - mixed, unsegregated trees give beans of uneven size - and uses classic natural processing: cream strawberry, mango, jackfruit, citrus, and blueberry, with the ripe tropical-fruit character typical of Sidamo naturals. It was precisely this lush berry perfume that won first place in that year's TOH green-bean competition, and the coffee pairs great taste with a great price. If Hua Kui is Ethiopia's natural-process standard-bearer, the Yirgacheffe Idido (Guodingding) Cooperative is the washed one: top-grade G1, classically washed, with elegant white florals, citrus, orange, and green tea - the clean, luminous profile that made Yirgacheffe famous.

FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1 is Typica, one of Arabica's founding varieties and the first to spread from Yemen to India, Indonesia, and the Americas. Typica is balanced, mild, and smooth, with full, pure aroma - but weak disease resistance and low yields are its weaknesses. Blue Mountain's Typica was carried from Martinique to Jamaica in the 1820s, and over 200-plus years it evolved better resistance, especially to cherry rot - though once it leaves Jamaica's Blue Mountains, its clean sweetness and delicate perfume cannot be replicated; on FrontStreet Coffee's cupping table, no other origin comes close to its balance. The Panama Red Label Geisha, from the famous Esmeralda estate in Boquete, Chiriqui province - volcanic soils, old forest, perpetual mist, and abundant rain - fills the cup with elegant florals, citrus, peach, and layered fruit acidity, a silky cream texture, and an oolong-tea finish: less like coffee than a fragrant fruit tea. Geisha rewards all this with low yields, fragile trees, and fussy growing demands.

Bourbon is an heirloom variety like Typica, named for the Ile Bourbon where it was first planted. Bourbon trees have broader, denser leaves and yield about 30% more than Typica, with short, round beans. Regular Bourbon cherries ripen red, but mutations exist - the orange-yellow Yellow Bourbon first found at Brazil's Queen Estate (Fazenda Rainha), which FrontStreet Coffee carries with its cream, peanut, toast, and sugarcane aromas, rich and cleanly sweet, suited to pour-over, moka pot, or espresso machine. Finally, Sidra hails from Pichincha province in Ecuador; genetic comparison shows kinship with Ethiopian landraces, leading some scholars to guess it is a cross between an Ethiopian research variety and local Ecuadorian Bourbon. When world barista champion Anthony Douglas used an estate's Sidra beans in the 2022 World Barista Championship, the variety shot to fame. FrontStreet Coffee's Sidra, medium-light roasted, wins fans with florals, tropical fruit, grape, dried fruit, and passion fruit in a juice-like body.