What To Look For In The Best Quality Of Green Coffee Beans

If you want to roast the best tasting coffee on the market, you need to know what to look for in green coffee beans! Green coffee beans can be purchased for roasting at home or in a commercial roaster, which is why it is important to know what you are looking for. Green coffee beans should have a specific texture and look to make sure that they will create a premium product every time, making for a better flavor in your cup of Joe.

Oftentimes, when Arabica coffee beans are wet processed, they can undergo many different conditions. It is important for a roaster to select the best grade of premium coffee beans that have the fewest defects. This is not as simple as it seems, especially since many green coffee beans can have a number of issues, even if they are gourmet. However, if you don't know what to look for in defects within green coffee beans, it will dramatically affect the taste of the Java you are roasting.

Some of the most important defects to look for in unroasted beans are beans that are faded, water damaged, insect damaged, immature, diseased, or overfermented. As an example, faded beans normally have too much moisture as they are dried, depending on their harvesting environment. This means that they have less of a resistance to outside factors, and they will give a flat taste to the roasting profile. These types of beans often have a musty taste within the cup of Joe, and they look pale or like a lighter brown color. It is important to watch out for faded beans that have a higher moisture content, especially since they can easily dry out. As the beans dry out, if they are in a warehouse and not in contact with sunshine, it will cause them to fade. If a bean has too much moisture as it dries out in a warehouse, it will cause rotting on the inside of the bean, leading to a pale color.

Insect damaged beans are somewhat easy to spot in that there will be a small hole within the coffee cherry. This is something that can be caused by moths or bugs. Other insects damage can cause the beans to be bruised with yellow spots. If insect damaged beans are used within a roast, the beans will shrink in the roasting process and cause a salty taste.

The last thing to take into consideration when choosing green beans for roasting is avoiding immature beans that are not yet ripened. It is highly important that all green beans are picked at the proper time, which is why handpicking is the preferred method of coffee harvesting. If a bean is underripe, it will have a rough texture and green color with a sticky skin. This will cause the roast to become flat and dull with little acidity and an astringent flavor.