The basic knowledge of high-quality coffee

Coffee is a perennial evergreen shrub or small tree of Rubiaceae. It is a horticultural perennial cash crop with the characteristics of fast growth, high yield, high value and wide market. Wild coffee trees can grow to a height of 5 to 10 meters, but coffee trees planted on the manor are often cut to less than 2 meters in order to increase their fruit and facilitate harvesting. Coffee tree opposite leaves are long oval, smooth leaves, the end of the branch is very long, few branches, and the flowers are white, open at the base of the petiole connecting the branch.

Arabica bean coffee trees can be divided into two main varieties: Arabica (Coffea Arabica) and Robusta (Coffea Robusta/Coffea Canephora). There are also some minor species, such as the Liberian species (Coffea Liberica) and the Alabasta species (Coffea Arabusta), but they are rare on the market.

Robusta beans Robusta coffee trees can grow on flat land, it has a strong resistance to disease, and the yield is higher. Compared with Arabica beans, Robusta beans are more round in appearance, with a slightly inflated side with cracks in the middle, and straight grooves reminiscent of soybeans, while Arabica beans are oval and zigzag, a bit like half a peanut.

Generally speaking, Robusta beans are poor in taste, have 2 to 3 times the caffeine content of Arabica beans, and are cheap, mostly for the large coffee industry to produce instant coffee or low-cost comprehensive products. Arabica coffee trees are suitable for growing on fertile hillsides with good drainage at an altitude of about 1,000 to 2,000 meters. The climate should not be too humid, but they still need a continuous rainy season and abundant rainfall.

During the day, they like mild temperatures and less than two hours of direct sunshine, so if there is a lack of afternoon showers or fog to report every day, local farmers have to plant many taller trees in the coffee garden for shade. At night, they want an environment of about ten degrees Celsius but not too low, because too warm will make the coffee berries grow too fast to produce small, strong, hard and high-quality coffee beans; in case it is too cold to frost, the coffee trees will freeze to death.

Based on these characteristics, the promised land suitable for Arabica coffee is mostly located in countries with alpine terrain between the Tropic of Cancer, which is also known as the coffee belt (Coffee Zone/Coffee belt).

At present, coffee, as an elegant, fashionable and high-grade beverage, has long been popular all over the world, and has been listed as the first of the three major beverages (coffee, tea and cocoa) in the world. Coffee is also grown in 76 countries and regions all over the world. In 1983-1984 alone, the world's coffee output reached 5.5 million tons, with exports of 4.2 million tons. Among them, Brazil in South America, known as the "coffee kingdom", has the largest production and export volume. In spite of this, the hometown of coffee is not in Brazil, but in Ethiopia in Africa. to this day, there is still a large area of wild coffee forest in the dense jungle of the southwestern province of Cafa. The word "coffee" comes from the place name "Kafa".