The Coffee Poet

Here's a short look at how coffee makes its way from the beans that are picked to the shelves where you can buy it, ready to brew...

From its origins over two thousand years ago, coffee bean processing has grown to a worldwide market whose output as a commodity has a dollar value second only to petroleum.

Though there are dozens of bean varieties, the plants fall into two main classes: the arabica, first cultivated on the Arabian Peninsula, and the robusta which contains about twice the caffeine.

By contrast to wine, the coffee berry (called a 'cherry') is not valued for its fruit, but only for the bean inside. It's that bean that is aged, roasted, ground and brewed to make the 400 million cups per day consumed around the world.

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