Journey of a Coffee Bean (from Vietnam to Brooklyn)

January 15, 2020 3 min read

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Have you ever wondered how our nationally acclaimed coffee beans make it into your cup?

The journey from bean to brew involves hours of labor, plenty of resources, and a number of steps. Every coffee bean you use starts its journey on a tree on a farm half way around the world. At our farm in Da Lat, Vietnam, the trees are grown organically and with TLC.

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Founder, Sahra Nguyen, with one of our producing partners/farmers, Chu Phuoc, in Da Lat, Vietnam.

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These are beautiful white coffee flowers -- before the cherries arrive!

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Coffee beans grow in clusters. Prior to roasting, they’re referred to as cherries (technically, they are fruits) and appear green and red (when ripe) in color.

Robusta coffee cherries ripen at the same time (above, top) and arabica coffee cherries ripen at different times (above, bottom).

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Once the cherries have matured enough for harvesting, they must be picked and processed.

There is a big difference between how arabica beans and robusta beans are harvested. Robusta cherries on the same branch ripen at the same time, which means they can be harvested by pulling the whole branch off at once, or using a tree-shaking machine. Arabica cherries ripen at different times, which means they must be hand-picked. This process is more labor intensive than harvesting robusta beans.

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On the farm, there's a "resting shack" where farmers can take a break, lie down, cook some food, boil hot water, and of course -- make some coffee! (Above, Founder Sahra Nguyen with her mom and producing partners -- it's a family affair!)

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This is what the resting shack looks like from the outside.

After harvesting, the beans go through a variety of processes, including full wash, semi wash, honey wash, and natural.

The arabica beans we use are a full-wash process and the robusta beans we use are a natural process.

We’ll show you a full-wash process with our arabica cherries in Da Lat, Vietnam.

First, the cherries are sorted by weight and density. Lighter cherries get separated and tossed into a lower grade category.

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The quality cherries move on and get the outer layer or skin removed through a machine.

We begin to see the seed (or the bean), covered in a mucilage -- a sticky, sugary layer that is slimey to the touch.

The beans soak in a pit of water, where producers will stand inside the pit and rake the beans back and forth. This is to remove the mucilage layer. After raking, the beans soak in the water for 8 hours until all the mucilage is off. It’s important that the mucilage is removed to prevent mold.