First, the seeds are planted in pots and kept in nurseries between 9 and 19 months, until a height of 40-60 cm is reached – at which point they will be moved outdoors and planted in soil.
After planting the seedlings, the seed develops roots and a fragile stem, with beans. One coffee tree can take up to 4 years to fully develop and can reach heights of up to 3.5 m.
The fruits take between 6 to 11 months to ripen. When they reach maturity, they have a dark red hue. Harvesting of the beans is traditionally done manually, to ensure the selection of only the best beans.
There are two ways of extracting the beans from the fruit, in lieu of preparing the coffee. The fastest way to do this is by keeping the fruits in water (a process which can take a few days). A more common used method is to dry the fruits in the sun for a period of 2 to 3 weeks.
After processing, the next steps are sorting and classification of the coffee beans by quality, depending on size and color.
The quality and taste of coffee is determined by the quality of the roasting process. There are two ways of roasting the coffee in regards to the time of the process itself: the slow roasting method, which takes about 25-30 minutes and the fast roasting method, that takes around 10-15 minutes.
Coffee can only be prepared in ground form. Depending on the desired effect and instruments (kettle, coffee, espresso, etc.), beans will be ground in various degrees, from thick particles, up to the finest.
