Step 1 – Choosing the Coffee Blend

A coffee bean travels a long way before it reaches your cup. Everything starts when the ripe, dark red coffee fruits, called cherries, are harvested. The cherries are immediately processed by either the dry or wet method, then the coffee beans are ready for roasting.

There are many kinds of coffee beans and there are two main varieties which account for about 99% of world production:

Robusta’s higher caffeine content (2-4.5%) gives more body to the flavour of your espresso. This variety was discovered in Congo in 1898 and now accounts for about 25% of world production. Robusta cherries are generally smaller than those of the Arabica plant. The seed is round with an almost straight central groove.

A blend of only Robusta beans produces a coffee of poor quality, without much aroma, and a very strong, bitter taste, but with more body and a higher caffeine content than Arabica. Robusta grows mainly in Indonesia, West Africa and Asia.

Arabica has a richer aroma and less caffeine (1.1%-1.7%). Arabica beans produce subtle aromas, rich flavour and pleasant acidity. These sensory characteristics may vary according to the region where the plant was grown and how the coffee beans were roasted (the flavour may display varying degrees of spiciness, acidity or a chocolate taste).

A blend may include other varieties, or be a mixture of varying percentages of Arabica and Robusta which gives prominence to the special characteristics of one or the other.

Lastly, there is increasing demand for decaffeinated coffee, which undergoes a special decaffeination process to remove most of the caffeine in the beans. A content of 0.1% caffeine is the legal limit for decaffeinated coffee.

Step 2 – Grinding