What happened when I tried to grind green coffee...

Drying Coffee
Photo by Arah Ko, Sept. '12

Green coffee is what processed coffee beans are called before they are roasted. While green coffee can be green, it also ranges from a light green to a chalky grey.

Some studies had been conducted to see whether or not green coffee can aid weight loss, but so far it remains a myth because no scientific study has proven it yet. In any case, I decided I wanted to try green coffee for myself, but was surprised when I put it in the coffee grinder and it started to make a noise like a breaking lawn mower. Little bits of shell were being torn off tiny grey-green coffee beans. After a little more careful research I found out that my coffee had been green coffee with the hull and dried pectin (or mucilage) layer still on and that the blender had taken the outer layer off while leaving the very hard little green beans behind.
 

Above to left is green coffee, to the right is coffee with parchment skin.
Photo by Arah Ko, Sept. '12

 



While my green coffee blending experience didn't turn out exactly as I'd hoped, I did learn some things about coffee that I hadn't known before.

Coffee fruit are made up of seven layers and we only end up using the center cut of the bead, the part in the very middle, and the bean itself surrounding the center cut. The outer skin, pulp and mucilage layers are removed in both dry and wet processing. The parchment layer comes off during the coffee washing or drying. The last remaining layer called the silver skin is either removed by machine or it burns off in the roasting and becomes chaff. What is left of the fruit is roasted and ground for our enjoyment.

 

I curbed my disappointment about not being able to drink green coffee by brewing myself a cup of 100% Hawaiian coffee-- which was great-- but I'll have to tell you about it next week...

Yours Caffeinatedly,

Arah

Harvesting Coffee Cherries

 

Coffee grows on bushes in little green and red fruits called cherries. The coffee is ripe when the cherries turn dark red. After being picked and brought in the coffee begins the process of becoming the beans you buy in the store, but because I'm just making some for myself the process is a bit different.

 

Coffee is typically processed one of two ways, the wet method or the dry method.

 

For the wet method the coffee cherries are sorted and pressed in tanks of water and then either shelled by fermentation and washing or machine assisted wet processing. Both ways require specific equipment. Most Kona Coffees are processed in the wet method.

 

The dry method of processing coffee cherries is the oldest one. Whole coffee cherries are sorted and set out to dry on a flat plane or concrete and regularly rotated until their skins come off leaving the rest of the fruit.

 



Having tried to take off the skin the dry method last year without success (they all rotted) I am practicing neither the wet nor the dry method. Because I only picked one bowl of cherries, there are few enough to simply mash the cherries with a potato masher and pop the beans out by hand.

 

 

The beans are free of their skin and pulp and what can be seen now is the white, slimy pectin layer of the coffee. I set these out to dry in the sun for a few days.

(I hope this works. I've never heard of anyone doing it this way before...)



Keaau is the town right... There!

   Keaau is a town on the Big Island of Hawaii on the Hilo side, or East side of the Island. While Kona is famous for it's dryness (and coffee) Hilo side is a lot like Jurassic park-- except instead of big dinosaurs, we get geckos... Because of these extreme climate differences, some people don't realize that coffee can actually grow on both sides of the island.

   Hawaii is the only State in the U.S. that can grow coffee, vanilla and chocolate and Kona coffee tastes great because of the rich volcanic soil it lives in. We're growing our own coffee, just a couple bushes of it here in our yard on the rainy side of the island. Right now they look something like this:

This year I plan to go to several Kona coffee tastings, grow, dry and brew my own coffee, review local coffee shops and blog about it!

A hui hou!