A Roaster’s Guide To Coffee:

Mass production homogenizes the senses.

I.  Origin:

-Coffee; from the Arabic, Qahwah.
-First discovered in Ethiopia.
-First cultivated in the 15 century.
-Yemen produced the world’s first cup of coffee.
-Two basic Groups: Arabicas and Robustas -Arabicas being the higher grade bean.
-Optimal altitude for growth is 3600’ to 8000’ in tropical, volcanic climate.  Typically below the Tropic Of Cancer.  Which is also an amazing book.
-Coffee Arabica: a shrub tree with glossy evergreen leaves, and fragrant, white, self-pollinating flowers.  14’ to 20’ fully grown.  Pruned as a rule to apx. 12 or shorter for harvesting needs.’
-Coffee is farmed and still 90% hand picked across the globe today.
-The berries, similar to cherries in look, are ripe when red.  Each berry produces two beans [seeds].  After picked they are sluiced, pulped, skinned, washed, fermented, dried, hulled, and peeled leaving hard greenish beans that are sorted and graded by size and quality.  Generally the higher the grade, the better the bean, the better the cup of coffee.  After this process they are stuffed into 130lb. burlap bags and shipped around the world.
-The four major growing regions are Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia.

-According to legend and myth, coffee was discovered when Yemen goat herders traveling to Ethiopia, noticed their flocks running around and flying in the sky all night after feeding upon the leaves and berries of the strange new plant.

-Come find out more at my fair trade coffee shop, Yo el Rey, in Calistoga, CA.  I hand roast every other day.