Coffee Beans: Sustainable Selection

On a previous post, Coffee Joe blogged about organic coffee beans. Today, Coffee Joe is off to the local coffee roaster to learn how the green coffee beans are selected. It seems there is a great deal to consider when it comes to choosing coffee beans.

Five good qualities he does want:

1)      equal size

2)      comparable shapes

3)      almost identical color

4)      coffee bean lots separated by geographic area

5)      washed Arabica beans look uniform and bright.

Five qualities he doesn’t want:

1)      coffee beans that are mottled

2)      coffee pulp present in the tanks during processing

3)      brownish tinges on the green coffee beans

4)      coffee beans that are whitish or faded around the edges

5)      odour of fermentation or smoke damage

Your local roaster takes pride and care in choosing the very best green coffee beans. His view of the coffee world is to continue to keep it sustainable by knowing his product, visiting the coffee farmers, making sure they are getting a decent price, and always having the you, the end consumer, as his top priority.

Tags: coffee beans, coffee farmer, sustainable