What is the Structure of Coffee Fruit and Can You Eat It? Unveiling the Seven Layers and Their Functions

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FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Coffee Bean Structure

Coffee cherries have many layers from inside to out, with the outermost being: the coffee cherry skin.

Depending on the variety, the color of the coffee cherry skin changes from green initially to deep red, yellow, orange, or even pink as it reaches maturity. To improve coffee quality, coffee harvesting requires selective picking of fruits at optimal maturity, and the skin color is one of the physical characteristics for identifying the maturity of different coffee varieties.

The tissue beneath the skin is: the coffee pulp, and the inner layer of the pulp is a honey-like coffee mucilage, also called the pectin layer. The pulp and pectin contain many sugars and natural microorganisms. Coffee processing primarily utilizes the microorganisms and sugars in the coffee pulp and pectin to create fermentation, thereby producing very delicious flavors.

Inside the pectin layer is a harder "parchment layer," and further inside are the coffee seeds wrapped in silver skin. Coffee belongs to the dicotyledonous plant family, and one coffee cherry often contains two seeds.

Both the parchment layer and silver skin are protective layers for coffee. After the coffee beans are dried to standard moisture content, the parchment is removed mechanically during dry processing, while most of the silver skin comes off during roasting, leaving only the coffee beans in the end.

Coffee Bean Structure Layers:

1: Center cut - (Two coffee beans grow opposite each other, with one showing the cross-section)

2: Bean (endosperm)

3: Silver skin (testa epidermis)

4: Parchment (hull/endocarp)

5: Pectin layer

6: Pulp (mesocarp)

7: Outer skin (pericarp/exocarp)

Knowledge Point:

During production, to facilitate harvesting, farmers continuously prune coffee trees. This ensures that each coffee tree per unit area has sufficient nutrients to supply the needs of all leaves and fruits on the entire tree, thereby achieving better and more stable quality.

In short: FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research hall, happy to share coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation only to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Every month, we have three low-discount coffee events because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends drink the best coffee at the lowest price. This has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for six years!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473