A Brief History of Coffee

The origin of coffee remains shrouded in myths of the Middle East. One legend tells of Kalidi, an Abyssinian (Ethiopian) goatherd who one day found his herd frolicking around a cluster of shiny, dark-leaved shrubs bearing red berries. When Kalidi tasted the berries himself, he realized what had prompted the goats’ uncharacteristic behavior. Kalidi shared his discovery with the inhabitants of a nearby monastery who developed a fondness fort he fruit and its seeds. By drinking the beverage that resulted from boiling the berries, the monks found they could stay awake through evening prayers.

Another legend attributes the discovery of coffee to Omar, an Arabian dervish (a Moslem mystic). Exiled by his enemies to the wilderness-where he faced certain starvation-Omar survived by making a broth from water and the berries plucked from coffee trees.

Characteristics of the Plant

Coffee grows in tropical and subtropical climates, predominately between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, at altitudes ranging from sea-level to 6,000feet. Although technically an evergreen shrub, the coffee plant is generally referred to as a tree because it grows more than 20 feet in height if not pruned.

The coffee tree carries white blossoms scented like Jasmine. The delicate blossoms last only about three days, and six to nine months later the tree’s fruit, called cherries, appears. The cherries begin as berries, which ripen from green to yellow to red.

Ripe cherries have several layers: the outer red skin, a sweet pulp, a membrane called parchment, a then membrane called silver skin, and two coffee seeds (beans) that have a round or oval shape and are flat on one side. Nature occasionally provides only one bean per cherry instead of two; this single bean, smaller and more rounded than a normal bean, is refereed to as a peaberry. With arabica coffee, peaberries normally occur about 10 percent of the time. The flavor of peaberry beans is not different from regular beans.

Harvesting

Provided a coffee seedling does not meet with climatic disturbances or disease, three to five years will pass before it begins to produce a crop. Generally, the growing area’s rainfall and temperature determine the number of annual harvests and the method of harvesting used.

Green Coffee Processing

Once the harvest concludes processing must take place to remove the coffee beans inside each cherry. Two processing methods exist: the wet (washed) method, used primarily for arabicas, and the dry (unwashed) method, used primarily for robustas. Although there are fine arabica coffees that are dry processed.

The processing method helps determine the ultimate flavor of the brewed coffee. For example, wet-processed coffees tend to have a cleaner flavor, while dry processed coffees often exhibit a heavier body.