Focus on: The culture of coffee

Today we will look at the culture of coffee and the 2 main varieties most consumed in the world. There are no less than 73 types of coffee. Some are not edible, easily domesticated or too fragile to intensive cultivation demanded our consumption. The only two are marketed: Arabica and Robusta.

The Arabica type

Arabica has about 200 varieties, it grows at an altitude between 600 and 2000 meters in a tropical environment: temperature of about 25 ° C, average humidity but regular rains. The plants are rooted in deep soils on land rich in acids, such as the volcanic lands of Central America and the Caribbean, rich in minerals, fertile and well drained which give it a special flavour.

The plant is very sensitive to heat and frost, which is why it often grows in the shade of broadleaf trees like banana and cocoa. Arabica is autogenous that is to say, he fertilizes. In nature, it can reach five to six meters high but is topped three meters to facilitate culture and harvest its seeds mature after 60 to 120 days.

The largest raw coffee are Arabica, their aromatic qualities are clearly superior to those of Robusta because they have about 800 complex aromas and volatile, which must be protected from air and light. Arabica beans account for 70% of world coffee production. Some of its varieties are grown as large vineyards: large Mokas Ethiopia to taste fruity, Excelso the British or the Sul de Minas Brazil.

More localized varieties such as Blue Mountain Jamaica or Australia Sundried are now highly prized because they are the fruit of a particular expertise, they are products of exceptional quality.

The Robusta variety

The coffee variety Robusta appears only very recently, in the early 19th in the Congo Basin in Zaire. Originally, it's a wild coffee to small size grain that grows wild in almost all the forests of the African tropics.

It is, as its name suggests, stronger than Arabica, it replaces since 1877 the Dutch Arabica Indonesia ravaged by rust. Very resistant, Robusta produces grains that contain two times more caffeine than Arabica, but it offers lower quality coffees with less fine flavours.

Robusta is also associated with Arabica (20% -80%) to create compositions with more full-bodied flavours like "Special Italian Ristretto" which must be a special roasting to not exacerbate the bitterness of the mixture.

Cultivated in Central Africa and West, Brazil, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, from sea level up to 600 meters, Robusta are pollinated, that is to say that fertilization s 'operates through browsing insects that carry the cross pollination of flowers of a shrub to another.

Today, Robusta coffees represent 30% of world coffee production, France provides Robusta in its former colonies in West Africa (Ivory Coast) or Tonkin (Vietnam), while new producers like China entering the market.

Coffee cultivation

The coffee tree is a tree that requires a lot of application and encourages patience. The plants first emerge in the nursery: simple grains grow for several weeks until the first leaves appear. After the maturity of the plant reached, it is permanently planted to flourish for sixty years. A long lifespan apologized for the absence of harvest of the first five years following planting.

Then comes the first flowering. The flowers have the appearance of jasmine, they usually fade within 24 hours after hatching. They then give way to the first fruits: the drupes. These are small cherries that ripen gradually change from green to red. Depending on the variety, the fruits mature between six months and one year.

Inside a drupe, in the film that covers the pulp composed of 80% water, rich in sugar and pectin is a hard wall called endocarp. This "shell" houses the two seeds of interest, the coffee beans.