What's the most popular drink in the world? Your guess is right – it's coffee. Coffee can be consumed in a variety of ways – some like it hot and some like it cold. There are others who like it strong while there are also others who like to top it with a scoop or two of ice-cream. It's just heavenly to wake up in the morning and getting a sniff of your favorite coffee. Coffee pays a major role in most societies.

Initial Process On The Coffee Beans

Before we can drink our favorite coffee, the coffee beans need to undergo several processes. The coffee berries will undergo several multi-step processing before they are roasted to the form we are familiar with. The process starts with the harvesting of the coffee berries. The flesh of the coffee berries are then removed using machines leaving behind the seed which is called the "coffee bean". The coffee beans are then fermented to remove the slimy mucilage.

After the fermentation process, they are washed with clean water to remove the stinking residue due to fermentation. The coffee beans are then dried and sorted before being roasted. At this stage they are called green coffee.

The Roasting Process

This is an essential process before the coffee beans are sold to wholesalers, retailers and consumers. There's some science involved in the roasting of the coffee beans. When heat is applied, the sugar and acid will react together to release their aroma. It will turn darker and are quickly cooled to preserve the aroma of the coffee.

Roasting causes carbon dioxide to be released and this further helps to protect the coffee beans from loosing its aroma and flavor. For best results, the coffee beasn are stored to allow it reach its optimum flavor before any other process is done.

Before you can actually use the roasted coffee beans, you have to grind them to increase the surface area. Depending on your preference and brewing method, the texture of the ground coffee can range from very fine to coarse.

Other Forms Of Coffee

Nowadays, there is decaffeinated coffee to meet the demands of consumers. The decaffeinated process is carried out on unroasted or green coffee beans by steaming the beans and rinsing the beans in solvent. The process is repeated several times until 97% of the caffeine is removed from the coffee bean. Decaffeination process is done to remove only the caffeine while keeping the other chemicals of the coffee bean intact. The flavor and aroma of the coffee will still be the same fro the normal coffee beans.

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