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Coffee Bean Facts and Information.
The coffee bean is actually the seed of the coffee plant. There are many different types of coffee beans that basically come from two categories of plants - Arabica and Robusta. Coffee berries are red and green.
These coffee berries are hand picked when they ripen. The flesh of the berry is removed, usually by machine. Next the seeds are fermented to remove the slimy layer of mucilage. When the fermentation is finished the beans are washed with large quantities of fresh water to remove the fermentation residue. Finally the seeds are dried and sorted.
The beans are then roasted and the roasting process has a considerable degree of influence on the taste of the final product, creating the distinctive flavor of coffee from a bland bean, by changing the coffee bean both physically and chemically Beans from different countries are often roasted in different ways which creates a unique and interesting flavor.
These roasted beans are ground within just a few weeks. A number of different methods of grinding create different results. Burr grinders can be used to grind the beans, or blade grinders which actually chop the beans up. Turkish coffee grinds the beans by using a pestle and mortar.
This coffee is then brewed. The four different methods of brewing coffee include pressure, boiling, steeping and gravity. In the boiling method, boiling hot water is run through the coffee grounds and then filtered to remove the grounds. Pressure methods are used when brewing espresso where hot water is forced at very high pressure. Gravity methods drip water onto coffee grounds which is then filtered. Steeping is similar to using tea bags.
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