How Coffee Is Made

The other day I was watching How It's Made and they were showing how coffee is made. I never knew that the coffee bean actually came from the fruit of a coffee plant which is a tropical shrub that grows as high as 30 feet high. The berries are small red fruit which are picked off the tree by hand and washed. Each berry contains 2 coffee beans, which are green. After the berries are washed, they are left in the sun to dry for a few weeks and are turned often so that they dry evenly. Once the berries are dry, the beans are squeezed out of the berries and then roasted. It takes about 5 pounds of berries to make 1 pound of coffee beans. The coffee plant grows in places like Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Columbia, Ethiopia, Kenya, West Africa, Yemen, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The coffee plant likes to grow in areas along the equator in high altitudes where there is rich soil. Since I saw this show I no longer complain about the cost of coffee. Now I know how time consuming it is to get it to the roasted coffee bean stage.