YOUR GUIDE TO EVERYTHING COFFEE & MORE

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What is the coffee belt? 

If you've never heard of the "Bean Belt" before, it's a term used to describe the regions that lie 25 degrees north and 30 degrees south along the equator. That region offers precisely the perfect conditions for growing coffee. However, besides the right geographic location, coffee plants also need a moderate climate without temperature extremes and plenty of rainfall, the right soil conditions and distinct dry season to flourish.  Workers who pick the coffee plants needs this dry season to harvest and then dry the cherries. "Coffee Beans"

  Once you have a basic understanding of what taste is and how to begin tasting specialty coffee you may begin to wonder how coffee becomes so dynamic and what factors influence the taste of coffee. You might be curious about why you taste a hint of citrus, maybe you have begun to identify coffees that are full-bodied and wonder what makes them this way. There are many factors that impact the flavors that end up in your cup. 

The four main influences on taste are the environment it is grown in, how it is processed, its roast profile and how it is brewed. 

Similar to wine, the way coffee tastes can also differ, depending on where and how it was grown.  Studies has proved that coffee beans even contain more than 1000 different aromas, from fruity, flowery, nuances to nutty-chocolaty hints. These high quality and complex raw coffee beans offers roasters the perfect basis for bringing the right coffee for each taste, the process is simply impressive.

Before harvest on average, three to five years passes before a coffee plan bears its red fruit (cherry) with the pits that we refer to as coffee beans.  A very long time during which the coffee farmer has to invest a lot of time into ensuring that the plant grows perfectly. Growing and farming coffee plants calls for a lot of manual work, patience and meticulousness. The methods of harvesting coffee are selective harvesting and strip harvesting.  Selective harvesting is the most common methods across most regions. This method is where the cherries have to be hand picked, due to the difficult terrain and infrastructure at the coffee plantation, the benefit of this is that coffee trees can be planted on steep slopes, which is prime for growth, resulting in a premium product. The strip harvesting method uses a farming machinery that strips all of the coffee cherries from the tree, the terrain must be flat to accommodate this sort of machinery.

Processing coffee just simply means removing the bean from the fruit. A few common and mostly used methods are, (1) Natural - known as the Dry Process (2) Washed - known to be the Wet Process (3) Honey - which is call the Pulped  Natural Process. Each method of coffee lends itself to a different final cup flavor. Roasters select and blend differently processed coffee beans in order to achieve their desired flavor profile. The success of the coffee processing is integral to having a quality roast. Even if you have the perfect growing and harvesting conditions, a poorly processed bean can destroy the quality of the final roast.  Processing is a technical and time consuming process and if done incorrectly will devalue the coffee.