Where Do Coffee Beans Come From?

April 23, 2025 BY Mary Ennis

Coffee is so much a part of our daily lives, it’s easy to take for granted. But there’s a whole lot more to it than many of us know. So, let’s take a minute to examine where the brown elixir of life comes from.

Are Coffee Beans Really Beans?

Despite their name, coffee beans aren’t beans. They’re the seeds of coffee cherries — the fruit of small trees and shrubs in the genus Coffea — that are roasted, ground, and brewed to make coffee.

Coffee plants were originally native to the tropical regions of southern Africa and Asia, but are now a global crop grown worldwide in over 70 countries. There are over 120 species of Coffea, with more being discovered every year. The most widely planted are Coffea arabica — considered the highest quality coffee bean — and Coffea canephora, better known to most of us as Robusta.

It takes 3 to 4 years for newly planted coffee plants to bear coffee cherries. On most coffee plantations, the delicate fruit is still picked by hand to avoid damaging it. It’s very hard work, but an experienced picker can harvest between 100 to 200 lbs. of coffee cherries a day. That translates to about 20 to 40 lbs. of coffee beans.

"You need 100 lbs. of coffee cherries to produce 20 lbs. of coffee beans."

Anatomy of a Coffee Bean

There’s a lot more inside a coffee cherry than coffee beans. Each part contributes to the overall quality of the final brew.

Outer Skin: Coffee cherries are initially green, turning vivid shades of red, yellow, orange, or even pink when they’re ripe.

Pulp: The layer directly under the skin contains some of the sugars necessary for fermenting the coffee cherry during processing.

Mucilage: The inner layer of the pulp contains even more sugar, as well as pectin, both essential for the fermentation process.

Parchment: This thin, papery shell helps to protect the individual coffee seeds. It’s removed during milling, an important stage of coffee processing.

Silver Skin: This thin epidermis is tightly bound to the beans. It falls off during roasting. The resulting chaff can be used as fertilizer.

Green Bean: The technical name for coffee beans is “endosperm.” There are usually two beans, but some species of Coffea only produce one bean.

How Coffee Cherries Become Coffee Beans

Once coffee cherries are picked, they have to be processed as quickly as possible while the fruit is still firm and fresh. There are two ways to do this. The method used will depend on where the plantation is located and its access to resources.

Dry Method of Coffee Processing

The oldest method of processing coffee cherries is still the best choice in locations where access to plentiful, clean water is limited. Similar to how raisins were once produced, the coffee cherries are spread out in a single layer and allowed to dry in the sun.

Workers rake the cherries to turn them several times a day so that all sides are exposed to the sun. If it rains, huge covers are placed over the cherries to keep them from getting wet, which prevents mold or fungus from growing on them.

This continues until the moisture content is 11% or lower, usually for several weeks, depending on the weather.

Wet Method of Coffee Processing

This method makes use of modern machinery to speed up the production process. First, the cherries are pulped to remove the skin and pulp from the green beans. The beans are then floated to separate them by weight — light beans float, heavy beans sink. The next step uses rotating drums to further separate the beans by size.

The sorted beans are then placed in large, water-filled fermentation tanks where natural fermentation breaks down the sticky mucilage over several days. Finally, the beans — which are now only covered by their protective parchment — are rinsed and dried.

Bagging the Coffee Beans

Both methods result in dried beans, known as “parchment coffee,” which are bagged in jute or sisal bags and warehoused for export. These bags are printed with the name of the coffee plantation and often feature colorful art that makes them very collectible.

Some coffee roasters, especially those who work directly with coffee growers, will inspect and choose beans for their blends at this point in the process as an expert eye can tell a lot about the health and quality of a bean by inspecting the dried parchment.

Milling Coffee Beans

The final stage before export is milling. In much the same way as wheat, coffee beans are sent to large, centralized mills. There, it is passed through hulling machinery. For dry method coffee, this step removes the skin, middle layers, and parchment. For wet method coffee, it removes the parchment.

The beans are then polished, graded, and sorted by size and weight using machines. A visual inspection follows to identify imperfections in color or condition, and unsatisfactory beans are removed.

Roasting the Coffee

This is the final stage necessary to transform coffee cherries into the brews we all love. After carefully choosing their beans, coffee roasters use roasting machines capable of maintaining a consistent temperature of 550 degrees Fahrenheit to roast the beans. Conveyor belts move the beans through the roaster to burning.

When they reach an internal temperature of 400 degrees Fahrenheit, the beans begin to brown. This releases the essential oils and volatile compounds that give each coffee variety its distinctive flavor and aroma.

The beans are then rapidly cooled using air or water. Finally, they are packaged and shipped. For the best flavor and aroma, coffee must be consumed as soon as possible after roasting. Our special iFill® pods are vacuum-sealed to keep out air and preserve fresh-roasted flavor longer than bags.

Now that you know what goes into every brew, you can look at your favorite coffees with fresh eyes.