One of the biggest challenges to harvesting coffee is the topography of the land. Coffee often requires great altitudes, and frequently farms are situated along slopes in mountainous areas (though, this isn’t always the case). Machine Harvesting In Brazil, there are large areas of land that have requisite altitude for coffee growing. The estates in […]
Category: Seed to Cup
Processing Coffee
The way a coffee is processed after harvesting can have a dramatic effect on the resulting cup. As such, it has been an increasingly important part of how coffee is described and sold. But coffee producers almost certainly don’t have a flavor in mind when they select a processing method (though some do). For most […]
Hulling & Shipping
Unless coffee is processed using the semi-washed method, the beans are still enclosed in their layer of parchment when they leave the wet mill. The moisture content at this point is low enough for the coffee to be stored without risk of rotting. Traditionally, coffee is intentionally stored at this stage for 30 to 60 […]
Sizing & Grading
Coffee has, in many countries, been graded by size longer than it has by quality. in fact, the two things are still considered related, although technically they are not. Different countries will use different terminology around their grading. Grading is generally done with sieves, numbered to indicate the size of the perforations. The even numbers […]
How Coffee is Traded
The price paid for coffee is generally quoted in U.S. dollars per pound in weight ($/lb). There is something of a global price for coffee, often referred to as the C-price, or commodity price. This is the price for commodity coffee being traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Coffee production is often discussed in […]