Everyone’s shared definition of coffee is the dark beverage brewed from roasted and ground beans. Philosophically, coffee is the juice that gets your day going; we know that, too. But what is coffee?

Where Do Coffee Beans Come From?

The beans we know and love are actually the roasted seeds that come from the cherries (fruit) of coffee trees. It takes about a year for a cherry to mature after first flowering. And the average tree produces about two pounds of green beans (pre-processing).

Each cherry from a coffee tree generally contains two seeds that are the same shape we know coffee beans to be. They reside in the center of the fruit with a pulpy layer and outer skin protecting them inside.

Lilibeth Serrano – USFWS via Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Commons, Michael C. Wright via Wikimedia Commons

And fun fact: the cherries from coffee trees taste nothing like coffee, but they are lightly sweet and edible. The texture can be very fibrous, however, so they’re not typically eaten fresh.

The fruit, itself, can be dried to make what’s called “cascara” tea, which is light, fruity, and has a more mellow caffeine content. The fruit is also used in skincare and supplements because it’s ripe in antioxidants.

There are about 40 countries around the world that grow coffee trees with Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia producing the majority of the world’s coffee. (source) Brazil leads by far, producing about 35% of the coffee consumed around the world.

The majority of the coffee is grown along what’s called the “Bean Belt”, which is an equatorial region spanning Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia where the temperatures and climate are preferable for coffee tree growth.

The Types of Coffee

There are two main types of coffee trees that we get the majority of our beans from: Arabica and Robusta.

Arabica

Arabica is the most commonly found type of coffee produced for drinking. It is primarily produced in Central and South America, East Africa, and Asia. This genus prefers higher altitudes, around 2,000–6,500 feet, and milder temperatures.

Arabica beans are milder and more flavorful and make an aromatic brew, but can also be more delicate in nature, which is why they prefer the milder temperatures. 

By appearance, they are more elongated and flatter than Robusta beans.

Robusta

Robusta is primarily produced in Central and Western Africa, Southeast Asia, and Brazil. It is a hardier tree and can be grown at lower altitudes, from sea level to 2,000 feet, with warmer temperatures. This also helps make it the cheaper of the two coffee types to produce.

Robusta contains about 50-60% more caffeine than Arabica beans. They’re also smaller and rounder.

How is Coffee Fruit Processed?

Once the cherries are picked from the trees, there are three main processes used to separate the fruit from the seeds that will later be roasted and turned into the coffee beans we all know and love. The oldest method is the “dry” method, then there is the “wet” method, and finally the third method to process coffee fruit is a hybrid of dry and wet.

In the dry method, the fruit and seeds are left intact and dried together in the sun. They are left to dry, with occasional raking to evenly dry them out, until they reach about 11% moisture. At that point, the dried beans are hulled in a process that removes the dried out husk of the fruit. This generally produces a fuller body that makes sweet and fruity coffee.

In the wet method, the seeds (or beans, as we know them) are first removed from the fruit. Then the beans, themselves, are dried, then sorted by size through water channels. At that point, they’re placed in large, water-filled fermentation tanks for 12-48 hours to remove the mucilage from the beans. After that, they are dried then ready for roasting. Coffee processed this way may have a more citrus, sour, or floral flavor to it.

In the hybrid semi-washed method, the fruit pulp of the coffee is removed like in the wet method, but the mucilage is left at least partially intact, which preserves some of the sweetness of the bean. This is also called the “honey method” because the sugary mucilage can have a sticky texture to it.

After processing, the beans are ready for roasting!

So What Is the Difference in Roasts?

Great question, as there are a handful of options available out there, and it can be hard to choose. We cover the different types of coffee roasts and their flavor profiles in this article.