Taking the Beans For Granted
Have you ever wondered why coffee is so expensive? Yeah, me too! The cost of buying a small bag of quality beans feels exceedingly high. However, after what I experienced yesterday, I'm beginning to wonder why coffee is so cheap.
I spent the day with my new Colombian and Guatemalan friends touring a coffee farm and experiencing what a day in the life of a Colombian coffee farmer looks like. In short, I was astounded by what I saw and experienced. First, one perk of being a Colombian coffee farmer: the views!!! Check out how beautiful this is.
Considering I co-own a coffee company, I feel pretty well-versed. However, that changed yesterday when I had the privilege of seeing it from the producer's point of view. What astounds me most about coffee is how many things must go right for a delicious cup of coffee to reach our hands. It's almost a miracle.
First, the land, climate, and environment must be right to raise quality coffee. The right plants must be planted in the right locations, and cared for accordingly.
Second, and most surprising to me, is the harvesting process. The act of harvesting quality coffee is far more manual than I could have imagined. Each cherry is picked by hand, and must be picked at the precise moment of ripeness, ensuring any bad cherries are excluded. And we're not talking about skipping through vast open fields of coffee. It's more like carefully navigating the steep slopes of a mountain, making sure you don't careen off the edge in the process. Oh yeah, and the ground is probably wet while you're doing it.
Not-yet-ripe coffee cherries
Next comes the separation and drying. Each seed must be extracted from the fruit, then intentionally and methodically dried in the sun for upwards of 25 days. There are several methods to accomplish these goals, each requiring a diligent process.
Once the seeds have been dried and turned into green coffee beans, they need to be roasted. This is where my coffee knowledge starts to pick up. Roasting is both an art and a science. And unless the roaster knows what they are doing, even the best coffee beans in the world will taste like dirt. The craft of roasting well allows us to take high-quality green coffee beans and turn them into something beautiful.
Lastly, once the beans have been roasted, they must be prepared well for the final beverage to be delicious. Even the best beans, roasted at the highest quality, but prepared poorly, can be disgusting.
Five things need to go well in order for a cup of coffee to be delicious:
The plants must be appropriately placed and cared for.
The harvest must be completed with excellence.
The separation and drying need to be executed with intentionality.
The dried coffee beans must be roasted exquisitely.
The roasted coffee must be prepared with care.
If any one of these steps falters, it's a fail.
So, considering all that, I'm shocked quality coffee is as cheap as it is. Seeing what I saw yesterday makes me wonder what other things in my life I'm taking for granted. What else am I not fully appreciating for what it truly is? Perhaps I need to be more grateful for more of the blessings I have in my life. Who or what am I not giving enough credit to? Something I'll be thinking about today.
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