The altitude of coffee beans the difference between cocoa beans and coffee beans

The altitude of coffee beans the difference between cocoa beans and coffee beans

To put it simply, the higher the altitude at which coffee beans grow, the better they taste. Coffee beans grown at high elevations have pleasant acidity, rich aroma and rich taste, which everyone likes; on the contrary, coffee grown at low elevations has almost no sour taste, single taste and plain taste. That's why baristas always emphasize altitude. If your barista tells you that your coffee grows on a plateau 5200 meters above sea level, then this cup of coffee is definitely worth savoring.

Although altitude is only one of the many factors to measure the quality of coffee, it is definitely the most important one. The next time you go to the coffee shop, please ask the barista to tell you the history of the coffee in the cup, which will not only enrich your coffee knowledge, but also improve your overall coffee experience altitude, which will directly affect the appearance of coffee beans. When you take a closer look at raw coffee beans, you will find that the size and density of each kind of coffee are different. Are the coffee beans in your hand small and dense? Is the gap in the middle of the bean tightly closed or open? Is the gap straight or curved? Is the color of coffee beans close to jade, light green or blue? The shape characteristics of the bean body can directly reflect the growth altitude of coffee beans.

The best quality coffee beans are usually strong and grow at an altitude of more than 4500 meters. The growth of these coffee beans is very slow, so the density of the beans is very high, and the gap in the middle of the beans should be curved. In contrast, coffee beans grown at low elevations usually have a lower density and slightly open gaps in the middle. As for the color of the bean, the growing environment of the coffee bean and the processing technology of the raw bean will affect the color of the coffee bean. If the same kind of coffee beans produced on the same plantation are treated differently, for example, one batch is washed with water and the other batch is treated with honey, then the colors of the two batches of beans will be very different. Generally speaking, the density of bean body is the most powerful basis for judging the altitude of coffee bean growth.

Defective beans are an important factor that destroys the flavor of the final coffee. Therefore, defective beans should also be removed in the last step of raw bean processing. This has the problem of the number of defective beans, so according to the proportion of defective beans, supplemented by the size of the screen is also a way of classification.

Due to the rise of boutique coffee, coffee producing countries pay more and more attention to the quality of coffee, and the control of defective beans is the most important way. therefore, basically using the defective bean proportion as the classification method or auxiliary basis is becoming more and more popular. at present, the main representative countries that use defective bean proportion method are Jamaica, Brazil, Ethiopia and so on. Jamaica is based on the comprehensive rating criteria of producing area, altitude, screen, and defective bean ratio. For example, Jamaica Blue Mountain NO.1 refers to the blue mountain producing area, above 1700m above sea level, with a sieve No. 17 with 18gamble, and the top coffee beans with the most defective beans accounting for 2%. The proportion of defective beans is used as an important basis. Jamaica strictly controls the proportion of defective beans, and the proportion of defective beans in all grades is no more than 4%.

Brazil is another special country. Brazil is the largest coffee producing country in the world. Because of its large output and many producing areas, the classification work is quite troublesome, and it is not suitable to adopt a single classification standard, so Brazil also uses a variety of classification methods at the same time. Defective bean proportion, sieve and cup evaluation tests are all used in the grading process of Brazilian coffee beans. Needless to say about the first two, the cup evaluation test is one of the characteristics of Brazilian coffee grading.