by Owner / Master roaster, Couleur Café

When June arrives, I start planning which flowers and shrubs I’ll buy for the summer. I’ll take this time to share with you some history of the coffee tree, the tree that produces our wonderful coffee.

Once upon a time.…

Born on the high plateaus of Ethiopia (where it still grows wild), the coffee tree traveled thousands of kilometres to find the warmest places on earth so that, through its fruit, it could provide the whole world with its multi-flavoured nectar.

Cherry time…

The Coffea bush (or small tree), with its persistent leaves, is a member of family Rubiceae and lives for fifty or more years, growing only in the equatorial zone at an altitude of between 200 and 2000 metres. This mysterious tree continues to fascinate me.

It starts by producing its first fruit (called “cherries” by producers and “drupes” by botanists). After the planting period, three to five years pass and the producer then obtains 2.5 kilos of green coffee per bush per year. As with many plants, the fruits of the coffee tree do not ripen simultaneously. They change colour progressively over time. They go from green to yellow and then quietly to red. The red cherry is fully mature. The maturation progression explains why the harvest is done by hand and can last as long as three months.

Each cherry harvested contains two coffee seeds. What follows next are the various processes of cleaning and drying.

There are many types of coffee trees, but only two are cultivated:

• Coffea Arabica
• Coffea Canephora.

Considered to be the “top-of-the range”, Coffea Arabica represents 75 per cent of world production. It’s worth noting that coffee likes mountainous regions and higher altitudes.

There are some 200 varieties of Coffea Arabica. Moka, Typica, Maragogyp, Bourbon and Caturra are the oldest varieties. Their yield is smaller than that of new varieties, but they are still the richest in terms of aromas.

As is the case with wine, coffee’s flavours are influenced by its terroir, a concept that includes the location and nature of the soil, the humidity, the shade and the type of bush. Coffee is not merely a product of nature, but also the result of human know-how; its original qualities, however, are respected from the harvest to the roasting.

Come visit our shop and let us guide you through the various designations. More than interesting!