Roasting and Grinding Coffee

Roasting

The beans are roasted after they arrive at their destination. Roasting, which takes place in a large oven, is necessary to release the flavored oils in the beans.

The beans are cooked for 12-30 minutes at 550 degrees Fahrenheit. Finer flavors of coffee are created by roasting the beans for longer. Most mass-produced coffee is baked for about 12 minutes or until the beans start popping and expanding in size.

A roasting machine in action


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Grinding

An industrial grinder

Finally, the beans are ground into the coffee form used for brewing. The idea behind this step is to grind the beans as fine as possible to maximize the contact area with the water during brewing. Finer grinds also release more of the coffees fine oils and increase the coffee’s flavor.

After grinding, the beans are shipped in folded over and often vacuum sealed bags to grocery stores and coffee places for consumption. In some cases, whole coffee beans are sold to consumers to be personally ground at home.

Grinding coffee in slow motion


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Brewing Coffee

Brewing Coffee

There are four main methods of preparing coffee for consumption: boiling, percolating, steeping, or pressurizing.

Boiling is finely grinding the beans, then boiling it in a pot, also known as Turkish coffee.



Percolating is a variation of boiling, by using gravity to drip boiling water through a filter containing coffee grounds.


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Steeping is brewing coffee in a device called a French press, where ground coffee and boiling water are combined for a few minutes, then separated by a plunger. This leads to a stronger cup of coffee with more natural oils left in the beverage.




Finally, the espresso method forced hot pressurized water through ground coffee, which makes the beverage much more concentrated than any of the previous methods.



All of these methods are supplemented with an assortment of additives like milk and sugar to create an assortment of beverages. Making coffee, from growing to preparing, is a long but wonderful process that brings the coffee drinker everything from milk coffee to a triple shot caramel macchiato with soy milk.