What Is Coffee? The Incredible Journey from Seed to Cup

Coffee can mean so many different things to each person, and everyone has their own definition of what coffee is. Some may say “it’s a cup of happiness” or “fuel to get me through the day” or “a beverage that can transport you around the world and means so much more than what people think!” Coffee has become part of a lot of people’s lives all around the world and has been submerged into so many different cultures.

In the most recent coffee movement, what we call “Specialty Coffee” many people find it difficult to enjoy a delicious cup of coffee because some may say it has become so complicated that you need an education to enjoy a delicious cup. We want to help you learn more about coffee, and as you have joined the Stillwater Coffee Community, I hope you find coffee to be fun, enjoyable, and exciting as it should be. We want to share how we have learned to enjoy delicious coffee, and how it can be fun, intriguing and exciting!

So, what is coffee, and where does it come from? This is a question that I asked myself when I first got into coffee, because I had no idea where it came from, and what it was. All I know is that I went to the store, found it on the shelf, and had to decide between the brand of coffee I wanted, the roast I wanted “which was usually medium or dark roast” and if I wanted it whole bean or ground. We didn’t even have a grinder growing up, so we always got our coffee pre-ground in a canister! I am quite embarrassed when I think back to those days and see where I am now.

Coffee/coffee beans are the seeds of a coffee cherry that grow on a tree! Crazy right??

It’s amazing to think that God created these trees with caffeine, knowing that we would someday use these trees to create a drink that makes us go wild after the 2^nd cup!! I am sure all of us have eaten cherries before, so we know what a cherry looks like, and what the seed looks like. Well, these coffee cherries are significantly smaller in size compared to a normal cherry, and each cherry has two seeds or beans.

Now these “green coffee beans” must go through many steps before we are able to just drink it. If we steeped the raw green coffee beans in hot water, it would not present the flavor or aroma we are familiar with in coffee. All these coffee cherries are grown in other countries such as “Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, etc.… because the weather conditions are perfect for growing coffee.

Now there is more to a coffee cherry than just it being a simple coffee cherry. Just like a Banana is just a Banana, and you can’t really get different flavors or notes from different bananas, coffee is much different. There are many factors that determine how a coffee will taste as the result. These factors consist of “The country or region a coffee is grown in, the variety of the coffee, the elevation the coffee is grown at, the weather conditions the coffee is grown in, the process the coffee goes through after it has been picked, the roasting of the coffee, and finally the way a coffee is brewed. This all seems like a lot, but we are going to break it down for you over the next few weeks, so it all makes sense.

When the harvesting of a coffee cherry begins, farmers aim to pick the cherries at peak ripeness with the intent to harvest the seeds inside and less focus on the cherry. Now the next steps in the process can affect how the coffee is going to taste and the process by which it will need to be roasted.

The three primary processing methods are “Wet/washed, Dry/Natural, & Honey/ Pulped Natural.” Now I will dive deeper into these processing methods soon, but for now we are going to continue with the steps to how these coffee cherries get to your cup.

After the green/raw coffee beans have gone through these processing methods, and have been dried, the beans are left to rest with their parchment left on to allow them to mature and lose the grassy flavor from the freshly processed coffee. After they have rested for one to two months, the beans go through a milling process to remove the parchment layer. The coffee is graded by size, and the defective beans are removed by hand or a sorting machine to reveal all the good quality beans.

We have almost reached the roasting process, but not quite yet! After the beans have gone through resting and milling, they are packaged up into “Jute Burlap sacks” and shipped to a coffee roaster anywhere in the world. Many coffee roasters will work directly with farmers to get their beans, working through the importing process themselves, or they will work with an importer who focuses only on importing the coffee, and the roaster buys directly from the importer. The coffee roaster will then take over the process from here, and that’s where we come in. We spend time roasting each coffee based on all the information we have about the coffee, roasting it to highlight all the flavor notes the coffee has.

As you can see, coffee goes through a lot of hands before it reaches your cup! There are many people who work very hard to provide this coffee for the many coffee drinkers in this world. From the farmers tending their fields making sure their coffee crop is taken care of, to the harvesters who spend countless hours picking the coffee by hand, to those who are in control of processing the coffee, packing it, shipping it, the importers that are working closely with the farmers to get the coffee they need to supply the roasters, and the roasters that spend time roasting the coffee to its peak flavor, and finally you choosing your coffee, grinding it, brewing it, and sipping on it during your morning devotion with the Lord! I find this entire process fascinating, and it’s one of the reasons I believe God made the coffee tree. I believe he knew that one day this coffee would bring many people together, and lots of conversations would be had over a delicious cup of coffee.

God created many things in this world for us to enjoy, and coffee is one of them! I hope you are enjoying your favorite cup of coffee right now, and my hope is that we all can be a lot more thankful and appreciative for the coffee we have, and appreciate all the hard working men and women who made our cups of coffee available for us to enjoy!

Thank you again for being a part of the Stillwater Coffee Community! If you have any questions, comments, or need prayer for anything, please reach out to us, and we would be happy to help where we can! In the meantime, I enjoy your favorite coffee, and don’t forget to slow down and leave space for what is most important!