When you were little and wondered about the intimate workings of the world, didn’t many of you turn to a trusted adult in your lives and ask, sheepishly, “Where do coffee beans come from?”

Of course you did. When you asked, you might have heard many stories, some true, some false. Coffee beans are not delivered by storks. They do not appear on doorsteps, swaddled in Starbucks bags. And, sadly, when a daddy coffee bean really loves a mommy bean, they do not make a baby bean. I really wish this were the case.

Here’s the real story: Coffee beans grow on trees. Actually, these trees look more like shrubs but they grow pretty tall. The coffee plant is a woody perennial evergreen belonging to the Rubiaceae family. There are two main species of coffee grown today: Arabica and Robusta. Robusta coffee plants are hardier, produce beans with higher caffeine content but, for the most part, inferior taste. Arabica plants grow at higher elevations and are more labor-intensive plants to raise, but their beans are denser and more flavorful. Our coffee trees are Arabica typica.

Three to five years after a coffee seedling is planted, it begins to produce white flowers. Our trees flower in December, which is summer time in Brazil. Arabica coffee trees are self-pollinating (hermaphrodites) whereas Robusta coffee trees plant depends on cross-pollination (plant sex; those devils!). Three to four months after a coffee flower is fertilized, the coffee fruit begins to grow. Here’s a very cool animation about the goings-on inside a coffee bean during its development.

When the coffee cherries turn red we pick them. It’s harvest time now, so we’re doing a lot of picking each day. Then, each evening from 4 PM until about 8 PM, after the coffee cherries are picked, we “process” the coffee. What does this mean? That’s the next stage of the bean’s life, and I’ll post it next week.

Thanks for reading.
xoxo
Frances