This morning, you brewed coffee at home or ordered a hot cup of joe in a store. You either saw roasted, brown-colored beans that had to be ground, or had direct contact with the grounds that went through a pour-over or infusion process to extract the drink we all love.
But that brown bean you know is the product of a series of processes. Coffee isn’t really a bean, it’s a seed. This seed comes from an actual fruit that grows on trees. Cherries, to be exact. What?! I know you guys…
The Temple Walls
So coffee is actually a cherry that grows on trees. Most commonly, this cherry is a dark-ruby ovoid or egg-shaped fruit. Different coffee varietals may vary in their skin’s color when they reach their maturity. Some are yellow, others are orange, and there’s even some cherries that have spots. Either way, coffee starts as a fruit growing in trees or tall shrubs. This fruit, as many other, also has pulp. It’s a thin layer just below the skin.
The Moat
However you want to imagine this temple, ours has a moat. A liquid-like composition that raiders will encounter after they go through the temple walls. If we go through the cherry’s skin and pulp, we find a layer of honey. This is called mucilage and it’s sweet and very tasty.
The Trap
Traps are meant to protect some kind of treasure within a temple, just like parchment protects the coffee seeds in the cherry. Each cherry has two seeds. The parchment is a thin, flexible-yet-strong layer that creates a kind of hull for the seeds. The parchment protects the seeds for a long time, until it is dried up with it’s bean and is finally removed.
The Mindgames
Once you can see the treasure, you have to check once more if there isn’t one last test for you… a mirage a decoy or your own insecurities as a treasure hunter. Ok… This might be too extreme to describe the coffee’s silver skin. It’s just a last layer that thinly covers the seed, which you can usually get rid off while threshing the coffee or when you’re roasting green beans.
The Treasure
Finally, we get to the treasure! As I said earlier, the coffee we know is actually a seed. We call it a bean because once it’s stripped away from it’s temple and protective layers, it’s just a bean-shaped grain-like product that we use to make soup(?). The actual bean is a green/grey color. It is small and dense. And is yet to be taken to the museum for other people to enjoy.
The Curation
Let’s call coffee roasters our curators. They care for the treasure’s well-being, quality and prepare it to be exposed in a museum. When the coffee bean is roasted, it expands, hollows out as it releases some of its composites in the form of gas, and finally becomes brown. The roasted beans are ready to be exposed, bringing people from all over to awe, admire and drink.
Let’s review. Coffee is a cherry that grows on trees, it has a layer of honey between the skin and the seeds. Each cherry has two seeds, covered by parchment and silver skin. When these are removed, we end up with green coffee, which is later roasted to result in a gorgeous brown coffee been that is ready to grind and brew. May this information be helpful and may you always enjoy the treasures of coffee.
