An Analysis of Coffee in Ethiopia Essay

Coffee is said to originate in Ethiopia around 1000 AD. Coffee beans themselves are cultivated from a small evergreen called the Coffea tree. This Coffea tree produces fruit, called coffee berries that turn bright red when they are ripe and ready to pick. Coffee owes its popularity in part to the stimulative effect of its caffeine component. Coffee has two main varieties arabica and robusta. Arabica is mild and aromatic. It's the king of coffee and accounts for about 70 percent of the world's coffee production. Robusta coffee trees represent about 30 percent of the world's market. Robusta beans produce a bitter-tasting coffee with about 50 percent more caffeine than arabica. Coffee is processed in two basic ways either through the drying method or the wet-method. The drying-method consists of the harvested cherries being spread out to dry in sunlight. In the wet-method, the pulp of the coffee cherry is removed from the beans within 24 hours of harvesting. A pulping machine-washes away the skin and pulp. The beans are put in fermentation tanks for 12 to 48 hours. The beans are then dried, either by the sun or by mechanical dryers. Once the beans are dried, all of the layers are removed from the beans. Beans are then graded and sorted, first by size, then by density. Beans are either sorted by hand as they pass by on a conveyer belt or by an air jet that separates lighter beans from heavier ones. Coffee is then shipped unroasted when it is the called the green coffee. The next step is roasting, roasting is where coffee's flavor is fulfilled. The green coffee beans are heated in large, rotating drums using temperatures of about 550 F. Timing is everything. Roasting time affects the color and flavor of the final brew, so the length of the roasting period depends on the type of coffee desired (shorter for American brew, longer for espresso). The beans are...