1aaa American Green Coffee Beans
Coffee has several claims to fame. Coffee is the plant which the green house was invented. The coffee plant was the first plant grafted. Coffee is the first plant to make it around the world for agriculture purposes and profit. The essence of coffee is the first substance where so called drug laws started. Coffee is the first substances consumed universally world wide. Similar to oil, wars were fought over it's production.
Coffee Beans come from the coffee plant. The major differents between Arabica and Robusta coffees is the caffeine amount. Arabica generally have caffeine percentages of 1.1 to 1.7 percent and Robusta generally is between 2 to 4.5 percent byweigh. However, there are genetic differences: Arabica has 44 chromosomes whereas Robusta has 22. The plants differ in size, shape, environmental demands, disease, and parasite resistance. Robusta plants can withstand temperatures above thirty degrees celsius where the Arabica die after a few days exposure to higher temperatures. Robusta plants tend to withstand attack by parasites and the such. Robusta coffee tastes more bitter and or sharper than Arabica.
The bean is picked from the plant and or picked up off the ground. Such a harvest technique is determined by the cost ofbeans on the international market along with the supply of laboron the plantations and/or farms. Generally speaking, beans arenot machine gathered but there are places where machines areused.
The bean is inside the coffee berry. The coffee berry differs from plant to plant. Generally the coffee berry is red when ripe, however, some are yellow, and yet, others are brown. The outer cover, called drupe, is thick pulpy skinned, called exocarp, enclosing a layer of jelly-like pulp, called mesocarp. The coffee berryis about 15 millimeters in diameter, the exocarp is 100-300 micrometers thick, and the mesocarp is about 2 millimeters thick. Within the mesocarp is the bean and typically two coffee beans per berry. Rarely there are three coffee beans per berry but quite commonly, and sometimes by design, there is only one coffee bean per berry and as such, is given the name pea-berry.
The coffee bean, or basic seed structure, is protected by a thin protective membrane called endocarp, and commonly called parchment. Inside that, and still covering the bean is another fine skin called the silverskin. The average size of the seed berry is 10 millimeters and weigh about .15 grams each. They are light green in color. Many times tinged with grey or blue or reddish brown.
The picked berries are sorted. Most the time this is done by hand, but, again, there are machines doing this project too. Generally, berries are sorted by color, size, and looks. Unripe or imperfect beans are removed. Theoretically, the beans are ripe, the pulp is soft, and the bean is easily extracted. Again, depending on where the bean is processed, this is done by hand, but there are many simple machines that do this too. One such machineis a spinning drum which squeezes the berry until the bean pops out. During this process, the berries are washed and dried. Some are sorted by their specific gravity. (Where they float.) In many countries, the discarded beans are process locally. One such location, Kenya for example, calls this coffee bean Mbuni.
After the coffee bean is popped out of the berry, it is put through another machine which removes the parchment and the mucilage. This is a more precise machine which scrapes the bean. As such, the machine must be calibrated to the bean size, consequently, it behooves the processor to have beans all the same size. Further promoting the reason for pre sorting the coffee beans. Prior to this process, the coffee bean is dried. This is done in many simple ways depending on the local environment. Some beans are dried out in the open in the sun, others are dried in building with forced air heating, and in India, the beans a dried in special building during the monsoon season. Drying is done before machine separation.
A process called wet mucilage removal is done by promoting mucilage fermentation. This process is different to the "unwashed" or "natural" method of scraping the mucilage totally off the seed which can cause damage to the seed. A condition which affects the mucilage removal stage is fermentation which is the same as making alcohol. The bean actually ferments within the mucilage too. This changes the bean by altering enzymes within coffee bean. The fermentation process sort of eats the mucilage away in anatural process. This slightly fermented jelly-like substance around the bean is called "honey." This technique loosens the mucilage so washing the bean will remove the mucilage, thus, less damage to the bean is done. The wet process requires about 100 liters per kilo of coffee beans. Obviously, this process is dependent upon location. Due to its extra steps, complexity, and water resource, it is generally considered of higher grade and better. A high degree of consistency from constant sorting is a byproduct. It also cost more.
After the mucilage and parchment is removed the bean is washed again and dried. It is then resorted. Overly fermented, scraped, cracked, hollow, black, or just plain rotten beans are removed. Here again, these beans are seldom discarded. They become a lower grade local commodity coffee. Or, lower priced global commodity product which ever is required.
It takes about 5 pounds of berries to yield 1 pound of green coffee beans. On the average, a single tree will produce about 1 to 2 pounds of green beans. Generally speaking, crops are constantly harvested all the time. A worker can pick about 25 to 35 pounds of green beans a day in coffee berries, if they pick only the ripe berries from the plant at any given time.
Beans are de-caffeinated, soluble caffeine removed or fixed, in two ways; one way is remove the caffeine in a wash process with chemicals to aid in dissolving the caffeine into solution, the other fixes the caffeine with chemical compounds which wax the molecule, fixing it or insulating from the soluble solution. The first having the ability to sell the caffeine in dry form to chemical companies. The latter having sever degrading, or increase in caffeine content, do to aging and other chemicals. Commonly called Decaf.
Standard bean sales to Decaf bean sales is about 5 to 1.
First thing you might get straight is there is no conventional grading system. When the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange was disbanded in World War Two, every country decided to do their own thing. Because there use to be a grading system, some growers and countries use the old systems to some degree. The following is the old way. But, depend on, no way.
Grades are generally referred as AAA-AA-A-B-C for Arabica beansand I-II-III for Robusta in size. This is a size grade. The dried coffee bean is passed through a sieve which passes or retains beans based on size. Sizes range from 13 to 20 sixty-fourths of an inch. AA being between 16-18 sixty-fourths of an inch or about 7.2 millimeters. Generally speaking, this is the width of the coffee bean. However, there are those places which clisify the coffee bean by length. So, I classified the beans by length and width. "L" being length in 64ths of an inch, and "W" being width in 64ths of an inch. Yes, this means that too big is not good, and too small is not good. This is also referred to as classification.
In general, the best production of coffee beans is a consistant size no matter what that size is. This promotes even roasting.
General width classification:
No. 20 - very large bean
No. 19 - extra large bean
No. 18 - large bean
No. 17 - bold bean
No. 16 - good bean
No. 15 - medium bean
No. 14 - little bean
No. 13 - small bean
No. 12 - extra little bean
No. 11 - extra small bean
No. 10 - very little bean
No. 9 - very small bean
No. 8 - unacceptable bean
Another grade is the number of imperfections per 300 grams. NY2 means there are 4 imperfections in every 300 grams; NY3 means 12 and so forth till NY8. NY stands for the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange. Imperfections generally means any garbage, rocks, twigs, rotten beans, etc, found in the finished product. All grades have some amount of contaminants. It is just basically, the number of contaminants per pound which make the grade. Unfortunately, this grading system is different for each producing country. Worse yet, it changes with governments, and how bad someone wants to sell their crop.
Generally speaking 1 imperfection is called a black bean. For many years, the term black bean was used instead of imperfection. Modern time call an imperfection an imperfection. However, the rule for types of imperfections has remained the same:
3 shells equal 1-imperfection
5 quakers equal 1-imperfection
5 broken beans equals 1-imperfection
1 small pod equals 1-imperfection
1 large pod equals 2-imperfections
1 medium size stone equals 1-imperfection
2 small stones equals 1-imperfection
1 large stone equals 2-imperfections
1 very large stone equals 3-imperfections
In older times and in some countries the grading goes:
No. 2 = 6 black beans
No. 3 = 13 black beans
No. 4 = 29 black beans
No. 5 = 69 black beans
No. 6 = 115 black beans
No. 7 = 250 black beans
No. 8 = 500 black beans
Any more are not admissible to the United States.
Another grading concept is points. Very generally speaking, grading is determined by the country of origin. If the country is in favor, the grading system will be change to accommodate that particular government. Very unfair, unscientific, and confusing yes, but that is the way it is.
An example of a numeric grading system is Ethiopian 1, 2, & 3. One (1) being perfect. Two (2) being average. Three (3) being poor. Grade 1 is so perfect that only Royality and the mystics can get it, much less afford it. Grade 2 is sold and shipped. And, Grade 3 is for domestic use. In the Indies, grade 1 is a good selling grade, grade 2 is the average lower cost grade, and grade 3 way down there along with 4.
Now the question: does "Grade 1" mean any thing?
Another classification is based on the coffee bean density; H.B (Hard Bean), S.H.B. or SHB; (Strictly Hard Bean).
H.G. or HG (High Grown), L.G.C. or LGC (Low Grown Central) is both location and an attempt at bean density calassification using the theory that high and low density has something to do with the height on the mountain. To an extent at one location, this might be true. Rain, humidity, and temperature account for density too.
With new technology, yet another grade is appearing: that is of color. Now it is possible to sort beans mechanically by color.
Pea-berry beans are special. They look different than the two bean per coffee berry type. Pea-berry is where the bean does not split and is still connected together with the opposite side. Thus, it is generally round. Because pea-berries are special, they have their own classifications which have grater latitude because of there rareness.
Generally, the commercial coffee bean is packed in 60 kilogram or 132 pound burlap sacks. Then shipped with the silverskin in tact. However, this is not always the case either. Some coffee sacks go as much as 200 pounds.
The waist product in the coffee production process is generally thrown away, or used as fertilizer, or livestock feed.
One may ask; why is grade important? The answer is roasting time and temperature. Smaller beans roast faster than larger beans, thus, they cost less to roast and they roast more evenly. Too small of coffee bean is considered under developed and usually does not have a good extraction rate. Dense beans roast slower than less dense beans, thus, cost more to roast and roast less evenly. However, less coffee dense beans may contain more moisture, and more moisture adds to the roasting time. Density and moisture content of the bean go together to make a roasting environment. Less dense beans with little moisture cost less to roast and roast most evenly. However, more dense beans have grater extraction contents. Rocks and twigs don't roast well at all, and rotten beans taste bad. The same is true with color, beans of different color have different chemical content, thus, taste different and consistency is the name of the game. So, theoretically, bean grade is very important.
An additional note: bean grade was not developed to facilitate trading of the bean itself. It was developed to facilitate investment in the commodities market. When purchasing beans themselves, you look at the product, and you take the product or leave it. When purchasing beans in the commodities market, you never see the product, and you invest on blind faith. Experience at actually purchasing the beans indicates that the grading process is somewhat ambiguous. If you are a company purchasing beans, you go to the source, look at and test the product. If you are buying a boat load, you send someone to the country of origin and they evaluate the product. Either that, or you really must trust the seller, or have a trustworthy agent in the field.
This is a really good controversy. Many say, aging the coffee beans reduces acidity. Other say, aging the beans makes them taste bad.
Monsooned beans from India are about aging. In fact, it is a process which ages the bean in a particular way. Monsooned coffee beans are stored in such a way that the monsoon winds drys them. As such, the beans take on a light brown look. Some say they taste like balsawood but when the author fried up some, they tasted much like coffee should.
There are those people who like the taste of aged beans. As drinking coffee is an acquired taste, obviously if one acquires the taste of aged beans, then aged beans are what they want.
Aging beans is a process which goes back a long ways. When coffee beans were first introduced to Europe, modern shipping had 400 years to go. Beans aged naturally during transportation. The common description of "hidy taste" came about during this time. Many coffee beans traveled over land in camel caravans wrapped in goats hide.
Coffee beans are aged on purpose in many countries. It is a common practice. The problem is that more modern taste demands fresh beans. That's probably because more modern shipping gets beans to market faster so the acquired taste is for fresh beans. As a consequence, aged coffee beans are loosing their demand in the modern market place.
Then there are old beans. This is different from aged beans. Old coffee beans are beans which didn't sell. Ten to one, they are not kept in a warehouse designed for aging but in one designed for quick movement and they were processed for selling. As such, old beans pick up a musty flavor when sitting around in a steamy musty warehouse because the parchment defends the bean against such incursions and it has been removed for a sale which didn't happen. Because coffee is grown in the tropics, musty warehouses are common place. Think about it.
A second considerations is how the beans were stored. Typically, beans are stored in the parchment until they are sold. Then the bean is milled and the parchment is removed. After the parchment is removed, the bean is dried, sacked, and shipped. One may argue that old beans are those beans which have been sitting around too long with the parchment removed. Aged beans are those which havebeen sitting around with the parchment still intact.
As far as time is concerned, both aged beans and old beans are the same. They are both not fresh. As far as taste is concerned, there is a big difference between aged beans, old beans, and fresh beans. It truth, the green coffee bean buyer has three different flavors to choose form. It is a simple matter of which one do you want?
CC: current corp means fresh. PC: past crop means stored.
Blue Mountain Jamaican.
Coffee Tastes for General Roasts
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