COFFEE GROWING ORIGINS

The best specialty coffee grows in high altitudes, tropical temperatures and quality soil. These conditions are often found in hard-to-reach areas along the equator, where the right balance of rain and sunlight results in superior beans.

Aside from freshness, roasting and brewing, there are a few more factors that affect the taste and quality of what's in your cup, much as with fine wine:

Terroir; Loosely translated as the "taste of a place"; terroir refers to the particular type of soil, pitch of a hill and the actual coffee-growing location. Each of these is uniquely important to how the coffee will taste in your cup.

Microclimate: The immediate climate and environmental factors that influence the coffee cherry.

Varietal: The type of coffee tree and resulting beans.

Specialty coffee must be picked only when the fruit is ripe on the branches. Because coffee trees flower at two different times in the growing season, ripe fruit and unripe fruit can be found on the same branch. Selecting ripe fruit from the thousands of branches in a tree can only be done by hand, which is quite labor-intensive. Add to that the heat of a tropical climate, bugs and snakes, perhaps a drastically sloping hill, and you have one very tough job just getting the coffee fruit off the trees.

Imagine dropping 10 pennies on a gymnasium floor. Let them lie flat and try to pick them up with your fingertips. Some will come up rather easily, but some require some prying with the fingernails to get off the floor. Add heat and other factors, and that's the simplest way to explain the effort of picking coffee. Never mind the fact that there are usually only two seeds to every cherry picked- and look how many "seeds" are in a typical bag of purchased coffee.

Once the coffee is picked from the trees, it must be transported within hours to the mill or collection station for processing. This is critical to insure the fruit does not start to rot or mold.

There are three main methods utilized to process coffee. The selected method is chosen by availability of natural and financial resources, as well as history and tradition.

Raw beans are dumped into a holding tank filled with water. This helps separate unripe fruit, sticks and leaves, which float on top while the ripe cherries drop to the bottom.

Ripe coffee is then released from the bottom of a tank by a gate and it flows through a series of channels, usually to a pulping wheel. This wheel squeezes the seeds from the fruit skin, as is done with a wine grape. The skin is sent to a pile on the side via an auger, while the seeds travel to a large tile- or cement-lined fermentation tank. It is filled with water along with the coffee seeds. Now, the coffee seeds are covered in a sticky, sugary substance called mucilage. When the coffee is left to sit for 12 to 24 hours, natural bacteria eat away the mucilage from the big tank of coffee.

Once the mucilage has been removed from the coffee seeds, they are rinsed and laid out to dry. A protective papery layer, called pergamino (parchment), remains around the green coffee beans. The pergamino-covered beans are laid out in the sun and turned regularly with rakes to prevent molding or fermenting.

Once dried to a specific moisture content, the pergamino is then collected, bagged and left to rest. Coffee must rest from its journey from the tree for a period of 30 to 90 days. In the same way a bottle of red wine must be exposed to air for a time period to open up, so must coffee rest after being processed. Once rested, the coffee is milled and the parchment and a thin layer called silver skin are removed.

The coffee is then ready for quality grading and export - more about that later.

Coffee fruit is picked and transported to the drying station. Instead of the fermentation process, coffee is simply laid in the sun. The whole cherries are then raked as they dry. As with washed coffee, it is just as important to turn the fruit as it dries to prevent mold and funk.

Some farms use patios, tarps or even rooftops to dry the coffee. Others use what are called drying beds. The coffee is laid upon elevated tables with breathable and/or reflective tarps that help the coffee to dry quickly. Once dry, the coffee typically rests for 30 to 90 days, is milled and then polished for quality control and exporting.

The primary difference between the two main types of processing is the resulting flavor. The washed process produces a "clean cup" with bright flavors and acidity. The natural process yields a more "earthy" flavor with sometimes intense fruit and liqueur flavors.

This method is a blend of the two previous processes. The cherries are pulped as in the wet process. Instead of heading to fermentation tanks, the coffee seeds are spread out to dry with all of the sticky mucilage. Coffee is then raked, dried and bagged to rest; the milling, quality control and export preparation stages follow. The result is often sweet and pleasantly funky coffee with a medium, tart acidity in the finish. Each coffee is different, so experimentation is recommended.