Today, "regular" coffee production is often a hidden synonym for poor quality, lack of durability, and transparency. Instead, this means an unpleasant experience through bad taste and a not-so-great feeling in your body. In contrast, most cases of special coffee mean guaranteed quality during all stages of coffee production, from the process from seeds to your cup of coffee.
Growing and processing
The journey of coffee begins with the growth of coffee trees. First, a raw coffee seed is planted. It must be a good quality seed and must be planted in the right place at the right time to produce quality coffee. The two most popular types of coffee are; soft taste Arabica and Robusta, which are bitter, but easier to grow. Almost all specialty coffee comes from the first 10% of Arabica seeds.
After 3-4 years, the planted coffee tree will give the first red fruits - coffee beans that are ready to be harvested.
The coffee is harvested mostly by hand, either "harvested by tape" or "selectively selected". Picking with strips is a faster process, but it also means that all the berries of the tree are harvested at the same time. Selective manual harvesting takes more time but gives a better result because only the grains that are at the peak of maturity are harvested and the raw beans are left for later.
Once the harvest is complete, the coffee must be processed as soon as possible to prevent damage. There are methods to do this: dry, semi-dry, and wet.
When the dry method is used, the coffee beans are stretched to dry over a large area and dried under the sun. In the wet method, the bean pulp is removed and the beans are fermented in tanks and washed with large amounts of water. This is one of the most important steps in coffee processing and is often wrong. False fermentation and washing can give the coffee impurities and a bad bitter taste, which cannot be removed afterward.
Once the coffee is dry, it is sorted by size and weight. Damaged and incorrectly colored beans are removed. Unfortunately, much of the global coffee industry consists of poor quality coffee beans, which are sold and used to produce cheap coffee blends without a fair payment to farmers. Removing these poor-quality coffee beans is important because even a coffee bean over baking can spoil your coffee cup giving it a sour and vinegar-like taste. Once the sorting is complete, the green coffee beans are stored in jute or sisal bags until shipped to a monastery.
Roasting
Now it's time to test the coffee. The taster, also called the "cupper", will check the color, which for a professional cupper says a lot about quality. After visual approval, it's time for some tasting of roasting, brewing, smelling, and releasing "slurp", and once the quality is approved by the cupper, the rest of the beans are fried.
Beans are usually fried at about 230-260 degrees Celsius. The coffee is kept stirring until roasting. When the inside temperature of the grains reaches 230 degrees Celsius, the oil inside them begins to come out. This changes the beans from green to brown and gives the coffee a real flavor. Once the roasting is complete, the beans are cooled immediately, either by air or water and now the coffee must hurry to reach your cup. The flavors begin to fade immediately after roasting because coffee is best to enjoy 2-30 days after frying. High-quality coffee is often excellent after 30 days, but there is no hope for regular coffees.
Grinding and brewing the coffee
Are you already buying coffee as beans? If not, you may want to think about it, because getting the right grinding for you can make a big difference. Why is this important? Well, it will allow you to quickly extract all the flavor (before they lose their flavor after grinding) to allow for that perfect cup of coffee. Finer for espresso, coarser for filtrate. Some studies say that ground coffee can lose up to 60% of its flavor in 15 minutes after grinding, so if you're wondering why home coffee doesn't taste as good as your favorite coffee, this could be a reason. . Now preparing ...
Making coffee itself is a chemist-like process that you can spend your whole life studying, but covering the basics is enough for many of us. Prepare carefully and before taking the first sip, take a second and appreciate the long journey he has made, just for you and your health.