Coffee Bean
The coffee bean is the seed inside of a coffee cherry, the red or purple fruit of the coffee plant.
Each coffee cherry usually contains two coffee beans with their flat sides nestling against each other.
The coffee beans inside the cherry are green in colour, their natural state as a seed.
Some coffee cherries, around 5%, contain only one coffee bean, this bean is referred to as a Peaberry.
As this Peaberry doesn’t have another coffee bean to push against it is round in shape instead of having one flat side.
The coffee beans contain between 0.8% and 2.5% caffeine, a natural stimulant which makes coffee a very popular drink and the green coffee beans the world’s second valuable traded commodity, behind only petroleum.
Coffee Bean (Roasted)
The brown coffee bean we are all used to seening in our local coffee shop is actually the final product from the coffee roasting process.
The green beans are roasted in a large heated drum for between 8-15 minutes until brown in colour and are ready to send to coffee shops, supermarkets and our homes.