Blossary – Coffee beans

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A coffee bean is a seed of the coffee plant, and is the source for coffee. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a cherry. Even though they are seeds, they are referred to as 'beans' because of their resemblance to true beans. The fruits - coffee cherries or coffee berries - most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together. A small percentage of cherries contain a single seed, instead of the usual two. This is called a "peaberry." The peaberry is more unusual occurring only between 10 and 15 percent of the time, and it's a fairly common (yet scientifically unproven) belief that they have more flavour than 'normal' coffee beans. Like Brazil nuts (a seed) and white rice, coffee beans consist mostly of endosperm. The two most economically important varieties of coffee plant are the Arabica and the Robusta.

Category: Food

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American roast

This roast maximizes the individual flavor characteristics of the coffee bean by not "masking" a poor coffee with a dark roast.

brown roast

Also known as American roast, brown roast is the point where coffee beans have achieved their rich, medium brown color without an of coffee's natural oils appearing on the surface.

continental roast

Continental roast is the name applied to a degree of roast of coffee beans which is darker than a city roast. In this roast, the beans roast past the first crack, but stop prior to reaching the ...

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee or Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee is a classification of coffee grown in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. The best lots of Blue Mountain coffee are noted for their mild ...

robusta coffee

Robusta is a sturdy species of coffee bean with low acidity and high bitterness; it is used primarily in instant coffee, espresso, and as a filler in ground coffee blends. The bean comes from the ...

Coffea arabica

Coffea arabica /əˈræbɪkə/ is a species of Coffea originally indigenous to the mountains of the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia. It is also known as the "coffee shrub of Arabia", "mountain coffee" ...