I don’t know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen. ~
Sadly, coffee doesn’t transform me into the creative genius that is Gary Larson, but I do find comfort in holding a steaming cup of coffee, contaminated heavily with half and half. Since I feel compelled to doctor it, as they say, I don’t think the flavor is the attraction. I think it’s my fondness for routine. And when I drink coffee with my neighbors, it’s the social aspect. For many, though, it’s all about the caffeine, and it’s been that way for many centuries. Let’s take a look at the incredible bean.
Heads up – There’s a lot more to this topic than I anticipated, and I found brevity impossible.
History
As it happens, we don’t know the exact origin of coffee. There’s a lot of speculation about when it appeared on the culinary radar and even more as to when it began to take its current form. I’m going to go with a version that has support from multiple sources. If you later learn that it’s all a pack of lies, just pour yourself a cup of Joe and relax. It isn’t brain surgery. Here we go:
- Place of birth – Ethiopia. The seat of morning civility.
- Timing – probably more than a 1000 years ago
- Responsible party – a goat herder. He noticed that his goats were exceptionally frisky after eating the fruit of one particular kind of tree.
- Super-spreader – the monk at the monastery with whom he shared this phenomenon. That person experimented with the fruit; drank the juice and voila! He no longer had to worry about dozing off during late-night prayers. After that, coffee’s popularity spread to the Arabian peninsula.
Early on, the fruit was used to make a snack bar, if you can believe it, and sometimes the fermented fruit was processed into a type of wine. More believable, that.
It wasn’t until the 13th century that coffee, as we know it today (sort of), arrived. That’s when they started roasting beans and a few hundred years later, there were coffee shops all over creation. People socialized and listened to music and drank coffee. What a concept.
There’s nothing new under the sun, folks.
Coffee beans and their benefits lingered on the Arabian peninsula until an Indian pilgrim visited to Mecca and knew something good when he saw it. He left town with coffee beans tucked into his money belt. Ok. They didn’t call it that, but they were packed away tied around his waist. Doesn’t money belt sound better? That was in the 1600s and by 1696, the Dutch had established coffee estates in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) and Java. Other countries expanded to the Caribbean, then to Central and South America.
So, we’re up to the 17th century now. Coffee is in Europe and some people are saying it’s basically the work of the devil. Pope Clement VIII was asked to check it out. That plan backfired a bit. He tried it and liked it, so it stayed. In short order, there were hundreds of coffee houses in London. Lloyd’s was one of them, so you could make the argument that alert minds were responsible for conceiving insurance. Or maybe that’s a reach. What we’re fairly sure of is that people stopped drinking beer and wine for breakfast and started drinking coffee. They began their days more wide awake and less inclined to doze off.
Coffee also made its way to the U.S. in the 17th century, but up until that little tea party in 1773, our ancestors preferred tea–when they weren’t drinking alcohol. The British changed all that. Or maybe we did by dumping all the tea into the bay. Either way, that’s when the love affair with the bean started.
Roasting
Up until a few weeks ago, I had never seen coffee roasted and had no idea that the beans initially appear green. They look a little like split peas. Based on the videos I’ve watched, they taste a bit like veggies, too. Roasting changes the sensory properties. The bean is transformed to a rich, satisfying flavor that appeals to approximately 65% of the U.S. population. Even though coffee has its roots elsewhere, the % of coffee drinkers here is much higher than in the rest of the world on average which is at 30-40%. In full transparency, though, that’s the number of drinkers. Netherlanders drink more coffee per day at 2.4 cups each compared to the U.S. drinkers who are at a paltry .9 of a cup, according to The Atlantic. To see firsthand how the magic happens, I visited a boutique coffee shop, The Artistic Bean in Townsend, Tennessee. This establishment works with a wholesaler to secure Fair Trade organic beans.
The roasting process is a bit complex in the execution, but it appears simple at first glance. Here’s the short story:
- Pour green coffee beans into the hopper.
- Wait for the roasting chamber to achieve the pre-designated temperature.
- Roast the beans.
- Dump the beans out of the roasting chamber into the cooling tray where the bean agitator arm is making its rotations.
The latter basically stirs the beans so that they cool at a consistent rate. When the beans are cool, they’re bagged for sale or use in the retail side of the shop and labeled by lot and/or date. Much of what goes on between the first step and the last is not necessarily automatic; it depends on the setup. At the Artistic Bean, the roasters keep a close eye on the process.
- Airflow – if not well regulated, the beans can burn and the end product would end up tasting like coffee that’s been sitting all day on the back burner. I’m thinking the airflow allows the roaster to work like a convection oven – keeping the conditions surrounding the product at an even keel
- Temperature – the roaster, which looks like a small drum, is designed specifically to manage the correct bean-entry temperature and recover the heat, plus some, to achieve the right roast.
- Beans give the roaster a heads up when they crack (think of popcorn reaching that pivotal moment) from steam pressure at about 385° and then again at 435° – but note that there may be slight deviations on this. Based on my readings, it’s important that this “cracking” is occurring in all the beans, not just the first few.
- Chaff – the beans slough off a skin (chaff) that makes its way to the collection chamber. That has to be cleaned out periodically.
- Cleaning the exhaust system – the airflow is impacted by the buildup of oils (and whatever else goes on in there), so the time required to roast is different and the flavor may be different from the first batch after cleaning to the last one before cleaning. That, and the exhaust/ventilation process can suffer if other processes are not running smoothly. And for those of you who hate cleaning your coffee pot, chill. It takes between 1½ and 2 hours to clean this component of the system. You have nothing to complain about.
- Cool-down – takes about 8 minutes and is a required step after a preset number of batches. Each shop makes its distinct protocols.
A specific number of pounds are dropped into the hopper for each batch and they roast somewhere between 11½ and 16 minutes. Note that variables such as the condition of the exhaust system and roasting chamber will impact this timing. Also, each shop that roasts its own beans will develop its flavor profiles so that its regulars will know exactly what to expect when they buy a cup. Or a pound. Or more.
Grinding
Many of you may already know this, but once again, my ignorance is exposed. Here are the types of grinds:
- Espresso – fine. The drink is created with hot water under pressure and it has a very robust flavor.
- Pour-over – put your coffee in a filter and slowly pour hot water over.
- Drip – think Mr. Coffee
- French press – this is a coarser grind and is “pressed” but without the hot water under pressure.
- Percolator – this is the coarsest grind and may be what your mama used in the mid-20th century.
In case you have a Keurig, that grind is medium to medium-fine, like the Drip version. There may be other grinds, but the five above should capture most of what we drink on this side of the pond.
Current state & WrAP-UP
These days coffee is grown in what is known as the Bean Belt, according to an article published by Achilles Coffee Roasters. All the big producers are between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Brazil leads the market, followed by Vietnam and Colombia. Wherever it’s coming from, we drink a lot. In a publication from July 2022, the number reported for 2020-2021 was in the neighborhood of 166 million 125 lb. bags. Even considering how odd those months were, that’s a ton of coffee. Lots of tons.
Who knows whether we can’t do without it (addiction); don’t want to (habit); or simply need it for social interactions? I’m pretty sure I’m one of the few who just likes to hold something hot in my hand. Never mind the last drop; I rarely drink the middle one. I certainly enjoy the ritual, though. I’m confident it has contributed to civil discourse in business meetings, alleviated first-date awkwardness, and promoted neighborhood harmony through coffee klatch interactions. I’ll admit that I wasn’t a coffee fan until well into adulthood, but I now see its value on a number of levels.
Still, this doesn’t answer all the questions. If the British hadn’t enacted the Tea Act of 1773, causing colonists to boycott tea, would we still be drinking beer for breakfast? I don’t know.
You?
