Be it the luxury at home or a coffee bar, whether alone or in a company, coffee certainly is a joy that cheers up the quality time for millions of coffee lovers across the globe. For some, it’s a perfect start to a good day, whereas it completes the meal for others.
But where does that coffee come from? How is it processed? Why is a clean coffee seed essential for the best quality?
You might be aware that coffee is a plant and the beans come from a bright red coffee cherry. But what’s inside that cherry, and how does it affect the taste of your favorite beverage?
The different parts of the red coffee cherry have their respective impacts on the processing method and the final coffee profile. Let’s dive in for a better familiarization of our daily brew.
Why Use Clean Coffee Seed?
Coffee beans are seeds unless they have been dried, roasted, and grounded to be used for brewing coffee. Mature dried coffee seeds experience slow germination, making it challenging to obtain seedlings for coffee crops and coffee production.
Considering coffee seeds as the critical aspect of coffee production, it’s vital to maintain clean coffee seeds and the quality is remarkable to assist with good plant health and yielding quality coffee.
The coffee seeds germinate to produce a coffee plant that will offer you fresh coffee beans to roast into final coffee in approximately four to five years.
For best quality coffee, ripe and red coffee cherries are harvested from a healthy coffee tree. These coffee cherries have the bright red pulp and flesh that surrounds the seeds within. However, suppliers are available in the market who supply unroasted, green, and clean coffee seeds.
Why to Ensure Seed Quality?
Split the coffee cherry opening and take out the coffee seed within. Now wash the pulp and flesh from around the coffee seed by placing the seeds into a bowl of clean water.
Once cleaned, pour all the washed coffee seeds into a bowl having clean water. Let the coffee seeds soak for 24 hours, and then remove any seeds floating on the top of the water surface as floating coffee seeds are not suitable and generally won’t germinate.
Take out the seeds from the water and spread the excellent seeds onto a mesh window screen to dry in shade or partial sunlight. Once the coffee seeds appear dry, take one and break open it to check for moisture levels inside. If the exterior is dry and the interior is moist, the coffee seed is ready for germination.
This way, you can make sure the seeds are clean and are ready to be planted. It clarifies – Cleaner the sources, healthier the coffee plant, which will yield the best quality coffee.
Quality coffee seeds are essential to lay the foundation of a coffee with requisite characteristics:
1. Flavor
Flavour could also be termed as the taste of coffee that encompasses the overall evaluation of the coffee quality in terms of body, aroma, acidity, sweetness/bitterness, and aftertaste.
The best production strives to balance all the qualities, and lousy quality seeds, poor production, and storage steer the flavor towards being one-dimensional or flat.
2. Aroma
The smell of a freshly-grounded bean is the fragrance, whereas the aroma is called the smell of brewed coffee. It indicates the overall freshness and the quality of the coffee and reveals any defective or off-taste beans.
3. Body
The impression of the coffee on your palate when it covers your tongue and fills inside your mouth is known as the coffee’s body, aka mouthfeel. Your language either feels light, medium, or full-bodied depending upon the coffee’s overall heaviness, thickness, and viscosity.
Overall, the coffee flavour could be affected by the coffee’s body, which delivers richness. Hence, several factors affect the coffee’s body, including the seed quality and brewing method.
4. Sweetness
Sweetness in the coffee is usually accountable for providing smoothness and mildness to the overall coffee flavor while keeping any harsh or undesirable tastes at bay. Gauging the coffee’s sweetness isn’t similar to the sweetness experienced by tasting sugar. Instead, it entails a broader perspective as a distinct sensation of a fruity flavor on the tip of the tongue.
Usually, coffee tasters determine coffee sweetness by swooshing it around in their mouth, sensing the intensity of sugary qualities, and further denoting the terms such as fruity, chocolaty, or caramelly.
5. After Taste
Also known as the finish or nose, coffee’s aftertaste is experienced after swallowing a sip of the brew. It could be quick or long or lingering, and at the same time, it could be dry or light or sweet.
Rather than being dry, a clean after-taste offers a smooth feeling at the finish. Also, it may refer to the coffee’s fruity, chocolaty or caramelly qualities.
Ready for a Perfect Brew?
Even a small compromise could severely affect the final taste of your cup.
Several aspects are rooted in understanding the basics of clean coffee seeds that can help you achieve better plantation, production, processing, coffee roasting, and ultimately a perfect coffee cup. Now that you are familiar with the aspects associated with the significance of using clean coffee seeds, you can have more confidence in what you’re going to reap.
