WHERE DOES COFFEE GROW?
Coffee is grown on small, evergreen trees in plantations across South and Central America, Africa and Asia. As they require exactly the right amount of shade and sunlight, regular watering, pest and weed control, young coffee trees demand constant care from farmers. It can take up to four years for a coffee tree to reach mature production, and this can be maintained for 40 years if the tree is well managed.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ARABICA AND ROBUSTA?
Among approximately 60 existing species of coffee, Arabica and Robusta are the two grown for commercial and manufacturing purposes.
Robusta, which is from a botanical classification point of view a variety of Canephora, is grown at low altitude, from sea level to about 800 m (this is also influenced by latitude). Robusta is characterized by a strong body and very little acidity. It is mainly grown in Vietnam, Brazil and Indonesia.
Arabica grows at higher altitude, usually above 800 m, it can gro at altitides of 2500 m. It includes several well known varieties such as Bourbon, Tipica, Caturra, Catuai, Catimor, Mundo Novo, Colombia, etc. Arabica is characterized by fine aroma, less body and pleasant acidity. Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Central America, Mexico, India, Eastern Africa are among the best-known Arabica producing countries. Nestlé products such as NESCAFÉ use a blend of Arabica and Robusta coffee offering you the best in terms of flavour and aroma.

HOW AND WHEN ARE THE BEANS PICKED?
Once coffee trees begin to produce fruit, it takes about nine months for the fruit to ripen into red coffee ‘cherries’. Each cherry has two coffee beans inside. The coffee is picked by hand. For the best quality, only the ripe, red cherries are selectively picked, leaving unripe cherries on the branches to ripen for later picking. As each tree must be visited several times during the harvest, this is a more expensive method. Alternatively, the farmer may judge the time to harvest, and then strip the trees of both ripe and unripe cherries in one go. This is done by the pickers sliding their hands along the branches, allowing the cherries to fall into a basket or onto a tarpaulin spread beneath the tree, from where they are collected. This is more efficient, but results in lower overall quality.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BEANS ONCE PICKED?
The coffee beans must be dried and prepared for roasting. There are two ways of preparing coffee beans – the ‘dry’ method and the ‘wet’ method.
With the dry method, freshly picked red coffee ‘cherries’ are spread across special mats and left in the sun to dry for two to three weeks. With the ‘wet’ method, a ‘pulping’ machine is used to remove the outer pulp away from the ‘cherries’. The resulting "parchment coffee" is fermented and soaked to remove any remaining pulp. Then the parchment coffee is hulled to obtain the beans.
At this stage, coffee beans have a greenish tinge and are therefore known as 'green beans', which have almost no coffee smell or taste. Before being packed into bags and shipped across the world, green beans are sorted, graded and checked to ensure a high quality end product. Stinkers, blacks, sours and foxes are just a few of the names for imperfect beans that are rejected.
It is not until the green beans are roasted that they release the coffee aroma and flavour as we know it. Depending on the roasting equipment and the desired flavour of the coffee being made, green beans are roasted at between 180°C and 240°C for between three and 12 minutes.

HOW IS SOLUBLE COFFEE MADE?
Soluble coffee is made exactly the same way as roasted and ground coffee: beans are blended, roasted, and ground. Finally, this fresh coffee brew is specially dried, removing the water and leaving you with 100% soluble coffee.

You can find out even more on the Nescafé website