Wagner Coffee Service - What's Coffee?

Wagner Coffee Services, Click Here to go Home

Coffee is actually a fruit called a cherry. Each cherry contains two beans, which in their ripe form are green in color. Beans vary widely in quality. In fact, there are over 100 different types of coffee. Each has its own unique and distinctive flavor characteristic. Some are light and mild, while others are strong and bold. Most North American coffee drinkers prefer a light to medium blend for their everyday consumption. Specialty coffees such as espresso and dark roast blends have most recently grown popular but generally are not consumed nearly in the quantity as everyday blends. The average coffee tree produces about 1.5 to 2 pounds of roasted coffee per year. It takes about 4,000 hand picked green beans to make up a pound of coffee. This process of harvesting takes from three to four visits each year per tree. This is because coffee cherries do not ripen at the same time. A good picker can pick about 200 pounds of coffee cherries in one day, which equal about 35 pounds of roasted beans.

Generally speaking there are two types of coffee beans, Robusta and Arabica. Arabica beans are finer in quality (and more expensive) and are grown in the higher altitudes of the coffee growing areas of the world. Arabica beans have a slower growing process and a more refined flavor. Robusta beans are less sensitive to weather variations and contain more caffeine than Arabic beans.