2007-03-01 04:36:58 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Home & Garden ➔ Garden & Landscape
Types of plants
There are only two types of coffee trees that are grown today on commercial coffee plantations. Let's compare the two, shall we?
Arabica (coffea arabica) is the better of the two. It's cultivated in the Americas as well as parts of Africa and Asia, but can only grow at relatively high altitudes. Around 75% of all coffee grown today is arabica.
Robusta (coffea Canephora) contains more caffeine than arabica and has a bitter taste. Robusta is primarily cultivated in Africa. Since instant coffee tastes awful no matter what you do to it, the majority of instant coffee is made with Robusta. It's a more robust plant (see where the name comes from?) than arabica so it's easier -- and cheaper -- to grow.
Harvesting and processing
Coffee berries turn red when ripe; that's when they should be harvested since the berries can't ripen when removed from the plant. In spite of this, some coffee farms pick all the berries at once (known as "strip picking.") This reduces the labor but not all of the beans will be ripe, so the quality of the coffee suffers.
On the other hand, traditional harvesting is extremely labor intensive -- it can take up to a week for a single farmer to hand-pick enough coffee to fill a 100 pound bag with beans. Considering seven million tons of coffee are produced each year, it takes a large number of workers to pick enough fruit to keep up with demand.
Native origin of coffee
Coffee is believed to have originated in the Ethiopian rainforest. If geography isn't your best subject -- and it was never mine despite a cow-crazed seventh grade teacher's torturous tests -- Ethiopia is a landlocked country in eastern Africa, south of the Red Sea and north of the Indian Ocean.
2007-03-01 20:41:12 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Go to answers.com at search of site type types of coffee plants you get related links go through them.
2007-03-01 04:56:01 · answer #2 · answered by Richard J 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A roasting approach community to the Ipoh city in Malaysia consists of the inclusion of margarine (palm oil-derived) and sugar throughout the time of the roasting technique, generating a sort of roast extensive-unfold because of fact the Ipoh "white" coffee
2016-11-26 22:14:20 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
not sure how many, I know of the blue mountain coffee.
2007-03-01 07:47:14 · answer #4 · answered by bashmentgyal 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Two. Regular and decaf.
2007-03-01 04:56:42 · answer #5 · answered by farmgirl 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋