Know More About Rich And Tasty Coffee Beans

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, but how much do we actually know about this unique product?

The seeds of the coffee plant are known as coffee beans, and are found inside the red or purple fruit known as coffee cherries or coffee berries. The inside of the cherries are known as beans, although this is not botanically correct but they resemble beans quite closely. The cherry of the coffee plant usually contains two coffee beans, although there is a least one variety that only has one.

The first coffee beans were grown and cultivated in Yemen 2000 years ago. The cultivation of the coffee plant relentlessly spread across the world even though it was a closely guarded secret in Yemen. Some coffee plants were eventually smuggled out to various parts of the world including the Dutch East Indies, the West Indies and of course South America. Coffee seeds are major cash crop and form an important export product, accounting for over 50% of foreign exchange earnings in some of the developing nations. Large importers of coffee are the US and Italy.

South America is responsible for nearly 45% of the world's total coffee exports and probably the most well-known of coffee around the world is Brazilian and Columbian coffee. Coffee beans are roasted to varying degrees of darkness, with espresso beans being among the darkest and richest in strength and taste. By using a blend of different beans before roasting it makes it difficult to copy by rivals. The two major varieties of coffee beans are robusta and arabica. Coffee robusta is also widely known as Coffee canephora, and accounts for nearly 20% of coffee production worldwide. The other 80% of coffee production is of the Arabica variety but there is an amazing range of coffee bean flavours and qualities grown throughout the temperate coffee growing regions, with most of these varieties named after the region where they are predominately found.

Arabica beans thrive in temperatures of 16-25 Celsius and Robusta at higher temperatures. The ripe cherries are usually picked by hand as a typical coffee plant has both young and ripe cherries on the branch at the same time making automation difficult. After picking, the cherries are processed. The beans are then processed using either wet processing or dry processing. Wet processing is widely used in by the major commercial producers in Asia and South America, whilst dry processing - being cheaper and simpler - is quite common in the Central American region and niche plantations in Africa.

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