About coffee

COFFEE

Coffee is a beverage prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant.
These seeds are contained in a red fruit of the plant called “drupe”.
Studies showed that three or more cups of coffee a day led to decrease prevalence of asthma, and also reported that caffeine boosted memory in elderly people who drank one or two cups of coffee in the morning by raising calcium levels in their brain cells. Coffee has also been found to improve long-term memory as well as psychomotor skills.
Coffee may help reduce the risk of a number of diseases and ailments, includine type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s colon cancer, cirrhosis, gall stones, depression and more.
In particulary, coffee reduces diabetes risk among pre-diabetics by over 60% .


TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS:

There are two main species of coffee: Coffea Arabica and Coffea Robusta.
The majority of coffee plants are varieties of the arabica species. These plants are generally considered to give the best-quality coffee and they also produce less caffeine than robusta types. Arabica trees grow at altitudes from 600 to 1800 metres. They have a much more refined flavor and contain about 1 percent caffeine by weight.
Arabica trees are very susceptible to disease, frost and drought, so it requires very careful cultivation.
Robusta beans come from a high yeld plant that is resistant to disease. It does best at lower altitudes and it contains about 2 percent caffeine.


COFFEE AREAS :

In general coffee is able to grow between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. This region around the Equator includes Central America, Northern South America, Africa, the Middle East, India and Indonesia. These regions are considered to be in the Coffee Growing Belt. Coffee trees grow in tropical regions that have abundant rainfall, year round warm temperatures averaging 15-24°C and no frost. They grow at altitudes ranging from 600 to 1800 metres above sea level.
Today Brazil is responsible for about a third of all coffee production, making it by far the heavyweight champion of the coffee-producing world, followed by Colombia and Indonesia.


PROCESSING:

First step of processing is harvesting and around nine months after the flowers appear, the berries are ripe and can be harvested. Harvesting is mainly carried out by hand.
There are three different methods of picking:
hand picking – workers go between the trees and selectively pick only the cherries that are at the peak of maturity. Hand-picking is the most labour-intensive harvesting method. Higher quality Arabica beans are almost always picked by this method.
Strip-picking - the workers strip the branch of all the berries, both ripe and unripe, with one sweep of the hand. This method of harvesting is used for cheaper and commercial Robusta beans.
Mechanical harvesting - on large plantations in Brazil harvesting machines are sometimes used, which shake all the berries from the trees. The second step of processing is the extraction of the coffee beans from the cherry.
Three methods can be used in the extraction process:
the wet method: this is used in regions with abundant supply of water where the green coffee is sorted by immersion in water to remove any impurities. A machine first strips away the outer layers of skin and fruity pulp. Most of the world’s green coffee has gone through some sort of wet processing including most of the premium coffee.
The dry method: the cherries after harvested are placed to dry on the tree or are left to dry on tables or in thin layers on patios in the sun for three-four weeks. When the pulp are dried a hulling machine strips away the outer skin and pulp.
The most important step is the roasting.
Green coffee beans are roasted at temperatures ranging from 370 to 450 degrees for up to 20 minutes.
During this time the beans lose 18 to 23% of their weight and increase in size by 35 to 60%.
They change color from a light straw green color to medium brown or dark brown, depending upon the the degree of roast. Then the bean splits open and brings out the rich aroma of the coffee.
Blending is necessary to make a perfect cup of Espresso.
The goal of blending Espresso is to create the complexity of aroma and flavour which a single origin cannot obtain. It is important to know that the advantage of Espresso over other brewing methods is a result of the formation of the crema.
After blending, coffee is ready to pass onto the grinding stage, using a special Burr Grinder.
This process should takes about 23-28 seconds.
Final, coffee is passed onto the extraction stage using an espresso machine.


HISTORY:

The coffee plant was first discovered around 1000AD and there are several stories about how its effects were first observed.
According to one story, the first witness about this beverage is to be noticed in Kaffa, a remote area in Ethiopia, where a sheep herder named Kaldi saw that his flock became hyperactive after eating the red cherries from a certain plant .
So originally we can think the coffee plant grew in Ethiopia but once transplanted in Arabia was monopolized by them.
In 1600, viable coffee beans were smuggled into southern India. From there coffee spread into the hands of the Dutch and the rest of the world. A merchant of Venice introduced Europe to coffee in 1615 and the first Coffeehouse opens n Venice in 1654.
In 1933 an italian company develops the first automatic espresso machine and a few years later, in 1945, another italian company perfects the espresso machine with a piston that creates a high pressure extraction to produce a thick layer of crema.
Coffee today is grown and enjoyed worlwide and is one of the few crops that small farmers in third-world countries can profitably export.