How Do Coffee Beans Go From Seed to Cup?

Have you ever been curious, like FrontStreet Coffee, about where the coffee in your cup comes from? Today, FrontStreet Coffee will share with you the wonderful journey of coffee beans.

Coffee Cultivation

The familiar coffee beans we know are actually seeds from coffee cherries. To obtain coffee beans, the first step is to cultivate coffee trees from seeds.

Taking Arabica coffee cultivation requirements as an example, Arabica cultivation requires temperatures between 20-28°C, annual rainfall of 1500-2000mm, with rainfall timing aligned with the coffee tree's flowering cycle, and cultivation altitude between 800-2000 meters. Additionally, factors such as fertile soil, good drainage, and ample non-direct sunlight conditions must work together to ultimately produce high-quality coffee.

After selecting suitable land, coffee bean seeds must be pre-nurtured and germinated before being formally planted in the ground. This series of steps may seem simple, but actual implementation requires significant effort and care. Generally, coffee trees take 2-3 years to flower and bear fruit, and a coffee tree's productive lifespan is about 15-20 years. When a coffee tree's productivity is exhausted, the above steps must be repeated for new cultivation.

Fruit Harvesting

When coffee trees flower and bear fruit, they gradually change from green to bright red or dark red as they mature. At this point, the mature coffee cherries need to be harvested from the trees. Meanwhile, based on different growing conditions and actual situations, different harvesting methods are chosen, generally divided into manual harvesting and machine harvesting.

Manual Harvesting

Manual harvesting generally involves two methods. One is where workers move back and forth through the coffee plantation, selectively picking the ripest fruits, which we commonly call fully red cherries. Although this method is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and requires expensive manual labor, it ensures the quality of the coffee cherries.

The second method involves stripping all fruits from fruit-laden branches in one continuous motion. While this harvesting method is more efficient than the first, it inevitably includes some unripe fruits, which need to be sorted again later.

Machine Harvesting

Machine harvesting also involves two different methods. One is smaller handheld machines that are rod-shaped with large vibrators at the end. These work by shaking fruit branches, causing coffee cherries to fall into pre-laid burlap bags below.

Another is fully mechanized stripping machines where workers drive through the farm, using rotating and shaking rods on the vehicle to knock cherries loose, which are then transported through a system of trays and pipes into another dedicated storage vehicle. This harvesting method has considerable requirements for the scale of the coffee plantation and farm terrain, being more practical in large plain areas, and is commonly found in large coffee estates in Brazil.

Post-Harvest Processing

After coffee cherries are harvested, they need to undergo a series of processing steps to become what we call green coffee beans. Processing involves removing the outer skin, pulp, inner skin, silver skin, and other parts of the coffee cherry to finally obtain green coffee beans. This series of steps is what the industry calls the primary processing of green coffee beans, or in simple terms, the processing method of green coffee beans.

Taking the most traditional natural processing method as an example: As the name suggests, natural processing involves spreading coffee cherries directly on the ground or on raised drying beds for sun drying. The spreading thickness generally does not exceed 2-3 cm, and the cherries need to be constantly turned during this process to ensure even drying.

After drying is complete, they are sent to processing plants for removal of fruit skin and pulp, but generally the dried and hardened parchment is retained until the green coffee beans are ready to be sold and shipped, at which point they are hulled.

Packaging and Transportation

After drying and processing, green coffee beans are graded and then packed into burlap bags. These bags usually indicate the bean's origin, such as country, estate, processing method, grade, and other information, before being containerized for export shipping. Of course, some estates choose vacuum packaging and direct air freight, such as Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda.

Roasting

Before becoming the coffee beans we're familiar with, they must undergo the crucial step of roasting—the process of transforming from green beans to roasted beans. During the roasting process, Maillard reactions and caramelization occur, where organic acids and compounds in the green beans transform into delicious polysaccharides and volatile or water-soluble compounds through degradation and polymerization reactions. Roasted coffee will have complex aromas of nuts, chocolate, berries, etc., depending on the coffee bean's processing method and roast level.

Grinding into Powder

Because coffee beans are oval-shaped, they cannot be directly brewed like tea leaves. They need to be ground into uniform powder to achieve even extraction of coffee by water. Different extraction tools, brewing methods, and flavor requirements all have different requirements for coffee grind size.

Daily coffees like Americano and latte that require espresso as a base need to be ground to a consistency similar to flour; while pour-over drip coffees require coffee grounds ground to a consistency similar to raw sugar. (Note: Based on different brewing needs, even with the same brewing tools and beans, there may be subtle differences, requiring specific analysis for each situation.)

Extraction

Finally, we come to the last step before coffee reaches the cup and tasting—extraction!

These include but are not limited to high-temperature, high-pressure extraction with espresso machines; pour-over drip extraction; long-term low-temperature extraction in the refrigerator, etc. FrontStreet Coffee won't introduce all the diverse coffee extraction methods one by one. Ultimately, getting delicious coffee is what's most important, and one shouldn't be limited by the choice of extraction tools.

Coffee Cultivation — Mature Harvesting — Post-Harvest Processing — Packaging and Transportation — Roasting — Grinding into Powder — Coffee Extraction.

This is the general journey to get a delicious cup of coffee, and also the "life journey" of most coffee beans—wonderful and rich.

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FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
No. 10, Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

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