Part 1: From Tree to Gourmet Coffee Bean
Where Gourmet Coffee Grows
Coffee plants grow in the tropical and sub-tropical areas of four major equatorial land areas: Central America, South America, Africa, and Asia. Gourmet coffee is also grown in Australia, India, Hawaii, Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico.
What is Gourmet Coffee? What is a Gourmet Coffee Bean?
The gourmet coffee bean is the seed of the coffee tree. Typically, one gourmet coffee bean “cherry” (which is about the same size and color as a Bing cherry) contains two gourmet coffee beans, each hemispherical in size and slightly oblong in shape. There is a long crease on the flat side of each bean that is created as the seed grows and wraps around on itself while inside the fruit. The gourmet coffee beans are green in color after harvesting and removal from the fruit, hence they are called “green coffee”. The green coffee is roasted to develop its flavor and aroma.
Interesting facts about green coffee:
- Sometimes only one gourmet coffee bean grows inside the coffee cherry. This bean becomes round in shape, and is called a “peaberry”. A small percentage of any pound of gourmet coffee will be peaberry.
- One coffee tree typically produces only about two pounds of green coffee each year.
- One pound of green coffee has about 4,000 beans; hence 2,000 cherries were carefully harvested and sorted by hand to make each pound.
- Green coffee will keep for months if properly stored. However, the quality begins to slide if it is kept past its first anniversary of harvest.
Types of Gourmet Coffee
There are two major species of coffee plant: Coffee Arabica and Coffee Robusta.
Arabica Robusta
- High grown - Low grown
- Delicate, refined taste - Harsher taste than Arabica
- 25% of world’s production of beans - 75% of world’s production of beans
Virtually all “Specialty Gourmet Coffees” are Arabica, because of their finer flavor. Robusta
production is primarily in Asia (especially Indonesia) and Africa.
Factors Contributing to Flavor
Many factors contribute to the flavor of coffee, besides the species. Some of these include:
- Variety of coffee (next level of biological distinction below species)
- Altitude of coffee estate (influences climate)
- Climate conditions, such as temperature, sun and rain
- Quality of husbandry (pruning, weeding, fertilizing)
- Selectiveness during harvest (picking only the properly ripened beans)
- Processing for quality
Processing
How the gourmet coffee is processed after harvesting has a great influence on its flavor:
- Washed Method (The method used by the majority of growers)
- The freshly harvested coffee cherries are dropped in a huge tank of water where the ripe cherries sink and any unripe cherries, branches, or leaves float to the top.
- The ripe cherries are transferred to a pulping machine in a flow of water, where the outer skin and fruit is removed.
- The beans, surrounded by an inner husk called “pergaminio”, which in turn is covered by a sticky substance called mucilage, are sent to another water tank for a cleaning process called fermentation. Fermentation allows natural bacteria in the water to breakdown the mucilage. This may take anywhere from 12 hours to 4 days.
- The beans – still encased in their individual pergamino husk - are then passed through a system of water channels to be thoroughly cleaned of the mucilage.
- The washed and cleaned beans are then spread out to be dried in the sun on patios, or indoors by mechanical dryers, aiming to substantially reduce the moisture content of the green coffee and preserve the beans.
- Once dry, the beans are sent through a milling machine to remove the pergamino. From there, the beans are graded for density, size, and imperfections, and bagged for export.
Washed coffees tend to be more finely flavored then those processed by the dry method.
- Dry Method (More primitive, yet not necessarily inferior)
- Harvested cherries of differing ripeness are laid out – with the seeds still encased inside the fruit - under the sun in thin layers on patios or tarps, to dry (similar to turning grapes into raisins).
- During this 2-3 week process, the beans are raked several times per day to ensure even drying. Each evening, the beans are either covered or taken inside, to avoid damage from dew or rainfall.
- After drying, the beans are transferred to milling machines where the dried-out mucilage and pergamino are removed.
Coffees processed with the dry method tend to have a wilder, less refined taste profile.
Organic, Shade-Grown, and Fair Trade Gourmet Coffee
There are three primary components to “sustainable” coffee:
- Organic refers to how the coffee has been grown. Nothing artificial (such as commercial fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides) has been used. The coffee is kept in isolation from the estate to the roaster
- Shade-grown refers to where the coffee has been grown. Coffee that is grown under a canopy of taller forest trees has less of an impact on the environment, especially birds and other animals that need the tall trees for providing food and habitat. Since many North American songbirds migrate each year to the tropics, the availability of these coffee “forests” is especially critical to Americans.
- Fair Trade refers to how the coffee has been bought and sold. Traditionally, most green coffee grown in the world changes hands many times on the way to roasters. Often, the growers receive extremely low payments for their crops. Fair Trade cuts out the middlemen, and links roasters and growers directly. The growers receive a fair profit for their coffee harvest, enabling them to strengthen their families and communities.
CBI has been a leader in sustainable coffees for decades; CBI’s Café Tierra line was the first line of naturally grown whole bean specialty coffee offered in North America! We are also supporters of shade-grown coffee, being founding members of the Northwest Shade Coffee Campaign with the Seattle Audubon Society. CBI was one of the first national roasters to support fair trade coffees, actually predating today’s fair trade movement with our support of a large coffee cooperative in Haiti since 1995.
Part 2: The Art and Science of Roasting
Five primary things occur during roasting
1) The beans lose weight (about 16-20%) primarily from loss of residual water
2) The beans expand in size
3) The beans darken due to caramelization of the natural sugars
4) Soluble oils are released, and move onto the surface of the bean
5) Flavors and aromas we associate with coffee are created
Two primary styles of roasting coffee
Traditional “drum roasting”, where the green coffee beans are tumbled in large machines similar to a clothes dryer. The heat is applied to the drum and the air moving through the machine. The beans are roasted by both conductive (hot metal) and convective (hot air) heat, creating a roast environment that develops the full potential of each coffee. Non-traditional “hot air roasting”, where the green coffee beans are roasted in a large machine similar to a hot air popcorn popper. The heat is applied to the air moving through the machine. The beans are roasted by convective heat. While easy to control and even automate, hot air roasting tends to dry out (desiccate) the beans, stripping away oils and delicate flavors and aromas.
Coffee from Panache Roasts to Seven Different Levels
1) Peak (our lightest roast)
2) Velvet
3) Espresso
4) Italian
5) French
6) Double French
7) Anniversary (our darkest roast)
Single-Origin Coffees and Blends
Single-origin coffees are coffees from one particular region (Sumatra, Kenya, etc.). CBI roasts its single-origin coffees to Peak and Velvet roasts, levels at which the natural flavor and aroma characteristics of each coffee are fully developed, without significant alteration or additional flavors caused by darker roasting.
Blends are two or more single-origin coffees blended together. They can be blended either before or after roasting. One of the characteristics of many CBI blends is a darker roast level or levels. Our blends are carefully designed to offer balance and harmony – even when darker roast flavors become present in the cup.
Part 3: Tasting Gourmet Coffee
Coffee Tasting Terms
• Flavor – individual profile from the type, origin, or roast level of the gourmet coffee
• Body – the richness, smoothness, weight, or viscosity
• Acidity – the crispness, brightness, or snap
• Aroma – the smell from gourmet coffee and/or roast
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