From the earliest days of coffee drinking, the berries were stripped of their flesh to get to the seeds inside. Modern coffee suppliers also use industrial methods to ensure that the slimy remains of the berry, called mucilage, is completely removed. This is usually done through a process of fermentation, which uses large amounts of water and creates a pollutant called coffee wastewater. Modern machinery has eased this problem, but conscientious growers are hard to find, and the problem remains. If you ever buy raw coffee berries, you will need to take steps to remove the mucilage from the seed itself.

After the seeds have been thoroughly cleaned, they are then called green coffee beans. These are ready for roasting or the decaffeination process. Green coffee can also be aged, which makes them less acidic. Coffee experts still go at each other like the Kilkenny Kats when they debate the value of aging. Green coffee, speaking in the most general terms, has a shelf life of one year from harvest before it loses substantial flavors due to the evaporation of its natural oils.

The next step in creating good coffee is roasting, arguably the most important part of the entire process. Roasting determines the flavors of the beans. Green coffee, with its stable shelf life, is usually shipped out to roasteries near the place where they will be marketed. Home roasting is a relatively new phenomenon, and the equipment you will need to do home roasting is easy to find – one advocate of home roasting used a popcorn popper! There are some machines dedicated to home roasting available online, of course, at a wide variety of prices.

When you roast coffee, the color that you create in the beans tells you a lot about what flavors you will have. The darker beans will generally begin to introduce light touches of sweetness into the brew. Lighter beans with less heating will definitely have more caffeine in them. The darker beans will have more intense flavors. It is important to note that if you by green coffee from exotic locales, they will tend to lose more of their distinctive flavors as they become darker.

After the roasting, the last stage in preparing coffee for it’s soaking is the grinding. If you use a home grinder, to provide any sort variety in your brew, you should have at least two settings: coarse and fine. Most of your coffees will require a fine grind. Turkish coffee is so specialized that it requires beans ground into a powder! Coarse grinds are acceptable for the automatic drippers found in many American homes today. Remember that expressos and all the drinks (like cappuccino and mocha) that depend on expresso require a fine grind. Expressos also cannot be made properly with an automatic dripper – you’ll need a good expresso machine to make a good cup of expresso!