The following information contains excerpts from an in-depth course that we teach on the Canadian coffee industry, roasting and retailing coffee in Canada.

How Coffee is Grown: The best coffees in the world grow on a tree called Coffea Arabica. At five to seven feet in height, the Arabica coffee tree produces small red fruits called coffee cherries. Each cherry contains two green beans. After picking, the green beans are removed from the fruit and dried to 12% moisture for export. Like the grapes of fine wines, coffee acquires unique taste characteristics from its local geography and climate. High growing altitude (preferably over 3,500ft. above sea level), rich organic soils in the rainforest, shade-growing, selective harvesting, and proper processing produce the best quality coffees in the world. Arabica coffee grows in over 70 countries situated between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The two main commercial varieties of coffee are Arabica and Robusta.¹

Arabica vs. Robusta: Robusta coffee grows at lower altitudes than Arabica and is more disease resistant. Robustas lack the acidity and complexity of the best Arabica coffees, although they often display heavy body. They are used mainly as unnamed additions into cheaper coffee blends and are very commonly found in restaurants and supermarkets². Currently, there is a real market shift with the consumer demanding the higher quality of the Arabica bean.

Green Beans: An unroasted coffee bean looks like any other coffee bean except that it is slightly smaller, green, tasteless and almost odourless. If kept dry, the shelf life of a green bean ranges between 1 to 10 years. The origin country of a green bean has the greatest impact on its taste. Some examples are as follows:

• Major Classic Coffees: Contribute body, powerful acidity and classic flavour and aroma.
  Origins: Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela
• Minor Classic Coffees: Good Blenders, Contribute body and acidity without competing. Often sweet tasting when roasted dark.
  Origins: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Panama
• East African Coffees: Powerful winelike acidity makes a poor base for a blend, but adds complexity and liveliness. Can add a sharp bite to a blend if roasted dark.
  Origins: Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ethiopia (unwashed), Malawi
• Asian-Pacific Coffees: Add richness and body to a blend, and combine well with other coffees. Deep-toned acidity will anchor lighter coffees.
  Origins: Sumatra, Philippines, New Guinea, Ethiopian (washed), Indian³

Coffee Naming: There are several factors that contribute to the name of a coffee. The first is the country of origin and is rather self-explanatory. Secondly, most coffees have a market name that appears on the burlap coffee bag and on importer and exporter lists. This market name is derived most commonly from the region where the coffee is grown (i.e. Guatemalan Antigua, Ethiopian Sidamo) Thirdly, the grade of the coffee is considered. Depending on the country of origin, grade can mean different things, such as size of the bean, growing altitude, purity (absence of foreign materials such as sticks, etc.) and taste. Examples of such grade names are Kenyan AA, Colombian Supremo, or Ethiopian Peaberry ⁴. Even more important than learning what the grades mean is learning to determine the value of a coffee by its taste. This is called coffee cupping.

How Green Beans are Processed: The first stage in coffee processing is selective picking. Because ripe and unripe fruit inhabit the same branch and the unripe will spoil the ripe if both are allowed to co-mingle after picking, coffee in most parts of the world is still picked by hand. After picking, the fruit of the coffee cherry must be removed and the bean must be dried. This is called processing.

• Wet Method: Various layers of skin and fruit around the bean are stripped off gently and gradually. These "washed" coffees tend to be more consistent, cleaner, and brighter, or more acidy in taste.
• Dry Method: The beans are dried with the coffee fruit still adhering to the bean. The dried fruit is subsequently removed by machine, leaving small bits behind. This "unwashed" coffee produces a more distinct flavour and heavy body.
• Semi-Washed: The skin of the cherry is removed, but the flesh or pulp is allowed to dry on the bean and is removed later by a machine that temporarily wets the bean again. "Semi-washed" coffee is said to combine the full body and clarity and acidity of the previous two varieties.

How the bean is dried also affects flavour and quality. Generally, sun-dried coffees, which are spread out on patios to dry in the sun, are considerably preferable to machine-dried coffees which greatly utilize rainforest wood to heat the beans for drying. Much coffee is dried using a combination

of the two methods, since sun-drying can be significantly effected by weather and environmental conditions. Conversely, a new process called solar-drying which uses solar panels to collect energy for drying the beans, is the most consistent and environmentally sustainable method, but is not widely used at this point.⁵

Roasting: It takes about fifteen minutes to roast coffee at 400 F. During the roasting process, sugars and carbohydrates in the green bean caramelize in a chemical reaction called pyrolysis; a fiery dance that creates the over 800 coffee oils (or flavour components) which give coffee 100% of its great coffee taste⁶.

Staling: Coffee goes stale within five days after roasting regardless of packaging. Freshly roasted coffee produces a naturally sweet tasting beverage with tremendous life, body and soul. Stale coffee produces a flat, bitter tasting beverage. The reason? Fresh roasted coffee beans produce seven times their volume in inert gas⁷ (mainly carbon dioxide), which bind with the coffee oils before escaping into the air as aroma. It takes five days for the gases to escape naturally. During this time coffee loses 85% of its true fresh taste. An excellent comparison is freshly baked bread hot out of the oven⁸! To maximize the flavour of coffee, it is best to store roasted beans in a sealed container in the freezer. Grinding the beans further speeds up the staling process.

Decaffeinating: Caffeine is a mild stimulant that naturally occurs in hundreds of plants, including coffee. While the research on caffeine is controversial, the general consensus seems to be that caffeine is good for you in moderation and is bad for you in excess. Arabica beans generally have less caffeine than the Robustas; this is one of the reasons customers often comment on how the side effects likened to caffeine are reduced when they drink a higher-grade coffee. Caffeine can be removed by one of two methods: indirect or direct. In the indirect method, beans are soaked in hot water to dissolve the caffeine and the water is treated with a chemical solvent to remove the caffeine. The water is then sprayed back on the beans so the flavour constituents can be reabsorbed. In the direct method, the beans are soaked right in the chemical-laden water. The chemical solvent is then removed from the water and the beans are put back in the water to soak up the flavour. The four main decaffeinating processes are:

1. Methylene chloride (DCM): DCM is usually used in the direct method. It is the least expensive process. However, DCM is carcinogenic, and though only trace amounts are left on the bean before roasting and the rest is mostly evaporated during roasting, it is undesirable to many. In addition, DCM is an ozone-depleting gas which can escape during manufacturing, transporting, or use, and at least in Europe, many plants have had to change over to different solvents.
2. Ethyl Acetate: Ethyl acetate exists in fruits in minute quantities. For this reason, many people consider this method of decaffeination "natural." However, ethyl acetate is commercially prepared for decaffeinating coffee from ethyl alcohol and acetic acid and as with DCM, can be carcinogenic.
3. Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: THE BEST PROCESS! (also the one used by Equator Coffee) The raw, unroasted coffee is moistened with pure water and put into a vessel where it is contacted with pressurized, liquid carbon dioxide, which is chemically inert and completely evaporating. By circulation through the coffee, the carbon dioxide draw the caffeine out of the bean. In an evaporator, the caffeine precipitates from the CO2 which, after evaporation and recondesation, is pumped again into the coffee containing vessel for a new cycle. When the required residual caffeine level is reached, the CO2 cirulation is cut short and the coffee is discharged into a drier where it is gently dried to about the original moisture content.
4. Swiss Water Process (SWP): The SWP is a chemical-free process of decaffeination. The SWP trademark is owned by Kraft and its only decaffeination plant is located in Burnaby, British Colombia. The process involves a number of steps. First, a starter batch of unroasted green beans is soaked in water. The water absorbs both the caffeine and the flavour components of the beans. The caffeine-laden water is then passed through carbon filters that remove the caffeine but not the flavour components, resulting in water that has flavour but no caffeine. Next, a new batch of beans is soaked in the flavour-charged water. As in step one, the caffeine leaches into the water. However, because the water has absorbed as much flavour constituent as it can hold, the flavour stays in the beans.

Storing Green Beans: Most green beans will arrive at our location in 150-pound sacks. Provided they are not exposed to moisture or heat, the beans will store for years. In fact, some coffee connoisseurs say the coffee improves as the beans age. Decaffeinated green beans have a shelf life of approximately six months. Sacks of beans should be kept on boxes or on shelves elevated from the floor. Open coffee sacks by finding the string that opens the entire sack when you pull it. You shouldn't have to use scissors or a knife to open the sacks if you can find the magic string.