Life cycle of Coffee beans.
Steps included in the Crop to Cup of Coffee.
What is Crop to Cup?
How does a Coffee reach to your cup?

What do I mean by Crop to Cup?

Crop to Cup means how Coffee cherries get harvested from a Coffee plant and then goes through different process to be made ready for preparing Coffee beans which will finally be used to make a Coffee drink.
To simply put it is the life cycle of a Coffee Cherry from a Coffee crop to your Cup of Coffee.



Process Involved in Crop to Cup of Coffee

I have explained about the Coffee plant and Coffee beans in my previous articles which you can read from the Information’s & Educational page of my website. In this article I am going to write about the life cycle of the harvested Coffee Cherries which goes through different processes and finally reach to your cup as a Coffee drink.

A Coffee cherry takes about 9 to 12 months to ripen depending on the Coffee species and the Ripe Coffee Cherries are harvested. After being harvested it will go through processing methods from which Coffee beans are removed from the ripe Coffee cherries/raw fruits. In this article you will know about two kinds of Processing methods.

·        Dry Process (Natural Process)

·        Wet Process (Wash Process)

Dry Process

Dry process is also called natural process. In this method of processing a step called fermentation is not necessary. (I’ll explain fermentation in the last paragraph)
This method is mostly used in countries where there is shortage of water resource. It is also the oldest method and it’s done in dry sunny climate. This process was perfected in Ethiopia.

After the ripe Coffee beans are harvested it is sent to a washing station where the Coffee cherries will be thoroughly washed. In dry processing the Coffee cherry is left intact for the most amount of time so only the ripest, freshest and most developed Coffee cherries are selected. Sorting will take place through out the drying process where only the best Coffee cherries will be left according to the size of beans. Coffee is dried in such a way that air is allowed to circulate around the cherry which will allow even drying of the cherry. It is also constantly to avoid molds in cherry and excessive fermentation. It takes 3 to 4 weeks to dry completely. After drying it is sent through a hulling machine where the cherries and parchment layer is removed from the Coffee beans. After that the green beans got after hulling is sorted by hand or machine. After this the beans are sacked and made ready to ship.

Coffee got from this process has a more fruity taste because of how long the Coffee beans were left intact with the Coffee cherries.

Wet Process

In this method of processing fermentation is essential.
Now let’s know about the steps involved in this process.

1.     Picking/Harvesting
Coffee Cherry is picked when they appear bright red in color. They are picked/harvested mostly by strip picking and selective picking.

2.     Sorting
In this step ripe fruits and unripe fruits are separated. It can be done either by a machine or by hand. Harvested fruits are also kept in water in order to separate ripe fruits and unripe and damaged fruits.

3.     Pulping
We already know the different parts of a Coffee cherry from my previous article. In this step the Pulp part of the Coffee cherry is separated from the Coffee bean. Pulping can be done by hand using a pestle or by using a machine.
After removing the pulp mucilage is also removed from the Coffee beans while being washed after being fermented overnight. (This takes more than one time to perfectly remove the mucilage)
The Coffee beans is then dried.

4.     Hulling
In the hulling stage a machine removes the Parchment layer of the Coffee bean.

5.     Polishing
Polishing is the step where silver skin that remains on the Coffee bean is removed. Polishing is optional and a polished bean is considered superior in quality than unpolished ones.

6.     Grading
The final product after Polishing is called Green beans. In this stage the green beans are graded by its size and then packed accordingly.

7.     Exporting
Now the packed green beans are ready to be exported to roasting facilities or directly to costumers as well who roast their own beans.

8.     Roasting
I have written a more in depth article on roasting which you can read after this article. This step is much like cooking. In this stage raw Coffee beans are roasted which makes them have the refined flavor or simply put the taste of the Coffee.

The difference between this process is how long the Coffee beans were left intact with the Coffee cherries. In Dry process the beans are left intact for the whole duration of drying process while in wet process it is removed after 8 to 10 hours after washing. The Coffee we get from dry process tend to have more fruity taste where as Coffee from wet process is considered of superior quality.

Fermentation

Fermentation in Coffee production is a tool to remove mucilage from the Coffee bean. It also influence the quality and flavor of the Coffee

After all these processing steps your local café will grind the beans and brew a tasty Coffee out of it or you can do your own grinding and brew a tasty cup of Coffee in your home.

If you liked this article then you might also like other articles written by me which you can find in this website. They are all related to Coffee and I will post more articles related to this topic.
You can also Subscribe to my YouTube Channel (Benison Coffee) where I will post videos related to Coffee in the coming future.
If you have any questions or suggestions then you can leave a comment or send me an email.

Thank You! And stay caffeinated
-Benison