Growth and development of coffee consumption

Global consumption of coffee has increased significantly over the last decades. It is now believed to be the world’s favourite beverage, with an estimated 500 billion cups consumed each year. In many supermarkets the choice of coffee is bewildering, and even village stores or post offices stock single origin or other speciality coffees. We now have ‘coffee geeks’ and coffee shops employing hip baristas with highly refined and precise brewing methods, using equipment that would not look out of place in a laboratory. Some coffees have more complex tasting notes than wine, such as ‘blueberry cider’, ‘sweet sugared lemon tingle’ or ‘silky milk chocolate’.

The consumer certainly has plenty of choice and overall the standard of the coffee we drink has improved significantly. This is great news for coffee lovers, but do we ever pause to consider where coffee comes from, how it has been produced and how sustainable our daily cup of coffee really is?

Some coffee botany

Coffee comes from species of the coffee genus Coffea, of which there are 124 known species, although we only consume two of these. Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica), which originates from the cool tropical forests of Ethiopia and South Sudan, has an excellent cup profile (aroma, acidity, flavour and balance), natural sweetness and moderate caffeine content. This is the coffee we consume in most high street coffee shops and at home if we use whole bean or ground coffees. The other is robusta (Coffea canephora), which comes from the lowlands of tropical West and Central Africa. This is commonly used to make instant coffee and is sometimes added to espresso blends to improve body and crema, the light brown foam on the top of an espresso. The cup profile of robusta lacks subtlety. It has a distinct ‘woody’ flavour and can have up to four times the amount of caffeine compared with Arabica.

Arabica accounts for around 65% of global production and robusta 35%, although the proportion of robusta in the market has recently increased due to cheaper production costs.

Coffee trees produce red, or sometimes yellow, fruits about the size of a small cherry. Inside the fruit are two seeds embedded in a soft, sweet, sticky pulp known in botanical terminology as the mesocarp, and each seed is encased in a crispy coat known as the parchment (or endocarp). The skin (or epicarp) pulp and parchment are removed using a range of different methods, leaving the green bean (the seed) which, in terms of farming, is the finished product.

The green beans are exported to the country of consumption and then roasted, an activity involving science and art, to produce brown coffee beans. The roaster applies what he considers to be the correct roasting profile (the scientific method) in order to best suit not only the coffee type but also the consumer’s preference, although there is often (or exclusively) an artisanal element based on many years of roasting experience. Once roasted the coffee is left to ‘settle’ for a day or so, and then consumed within a few weeks.