From Bean to Cup – Roasted Coffee Beans

More often than not, not a lot of thought is given to the process that goes into making coffee. Indeed, it can be easy to take for granted once you’ve had your hand on a cup of one of man’s best-loved beverages. However, let it be known that the journey from bean to cup is a long and multi-tiered one, wherein the coffee seeds are made to go through many steps before they become what we know as roasted coffee beans.

To make roasted coffee beans, coffee berries must be picked off the plant by hand. After this, the berries are segregated according to color and degree of ripeness. The meat of the coffee berries is then taken off using a machine, leaving behind the seeds, or the coffee beans. These are then fermented in order to get rid of the residual layer of slime that is coating the coffee beans. Then, the coffee beans are washed with lots of fresh water so as to take away the residue left form fermentation, resulting in large quantities of coffee wastewater. Lastly, the coffee beans are dried, segregated and classified as green coffee beans.

The green coffee beans then have to undergo the process of roasting in order to yield roasted coffee beans. This is because the coffee that is consumed by the general public is in the roasted state. Roasted coffee beans can be bought as is from a supplier that roasts coffee beans, or they may be produced at home through the process called home roasting.

The process of roasting coffee beans to make roasted coffee beans definitely affects the quality and the flavor of the resulting beverage. This is true not just physically but also chemically. Through roasting, the weight of the roasted coffee bean lessens because of the decrease in moisture. This, in addition to the fact that the volume of the roasted coffee bean increases, makes for the lower density of the roasted coffee bean compared to the green coffee bean. One significance of the density of the roasted coffee bean is that it affects the potency of the coffee as well as the requirements needed for packaging the roasted coffee beans.

During roasting, the required temperature can go up to 392F. However, as there are a myriad of coffee varieties, different types of coffee beans require different rates of roasting in order to achieve their respective desired moisture and density.

Roasted coffee beans can be categorized according to color. That is, they can range from light, to medium, to dark. In general, lighter roasted coffee beans have greater amounts of caffeine, are slightly bitter and have a stronger flavor and greater acidity. In contrast, darker roasted coffee beans are smoother and have more of the roasted flavor.

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