Home / Coffee

Coffee

This is primarily a tea project, but coffee earns a place here as tea's closest relative in the world of ritual drinks: another plant, another set of growing regions, another whole culture built around a cup.

Arabica and robusta

Almost all coffee in the world comes from two species of the Coffea genus. Coffea arabica is generally grown at higher altitudes, matures more slowly, and is prized for a smoother, more aromatic, often sweeter cup with less caffeine. Coffea robusta (Coffea canephora) grows at lower altitudes, is hardier and more disease-resistant, produces higher yields, and has a stronger, more bitter flavour with roughly double the caffeine content: making it common in espresso blends and instant coffee for its body and crema.

From cherry to bean

Coffee doesn't start as a bean: it starts as a cherry. Inside each ripe coffee cherry are (usually) two seeds, which become the "beans" once processed. How that cherry is turned into a green, exportable bean has a huge effect on the final cup:

• Washed (wet) process: the fruit is removed from the seed before drying, generally producing a cleaner, brighter, more acidic cup.
• Natural (dry) process: the whole cherry is dried with the seed still inside, producing a heavier body and fruitier, sometimes winey character.
• Honey process: a middle ground where some of the fruit's mucilage is left on the seed during drying.

After processing, beans are roasted: the step that develops the familiar coffee aroma and colour through caramelisation and the Maillard reaction, with roast level (light, medium, dark) shifting the balance between the bean's original character and roast-derived flavours like chocolate or smoke.

Where coffee is grown

Commercial coffee is grown almost entirely within the "coffee belt," the tropical zone roughly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, where temperatures, rainfall and altitude suit the plant. Brazil and Vietnam are, respectively, the largest producers of arabica-leaning and robusta-leaning coffee by volume, alongside major origins in Colombia, Ethiopia (coffee's birthplace) Indonesia, and across Central America and East Africa.

Tea and coffee, side by side

Both drinks are built around caffeine and a plant-derived infusion, but they diverge sharply after that: tea is almost always brewed from dried leaf without further processing beyond drying and, sometimes, oxidation, while coffee requires roasting (a much more transformative step) before it's ever brewed. It's part of why this site treats them as related but distinct subjects, with tea as the main focus.