Written by Josherlyn Angelica
Designed by Kiara Andressa
According to the British Coffee Association, coffee is the most popular drink worldwide with approximately two billion cups consumed per day. In 2020/2021 alone, around 166.63 million 60 kilogram bags of coffee were consumed worldwide. Little do we know, the process of making coffee is not just a journey from your bedroom to the kitchen. It is a long haul that starts with coffea trees which are shrub-like plants that are cultivated throughout equatorial regions. Each shrub is filled with coffee cherries.
The harvesters work incessantly from dawn to dusk picking over 25 kilograms of coffee cherries per-shift. The workers then deliver their picked cherries to the wet mill that separates the seeds from the fruit and sort them by density. Once the most flavorful ones are collected, the workers put the seeds out to dry. Over the next three weeks, workers scour the seeds regularly to ensure they dry evenly. When the coffee beans are dry, trucks start to pick up beans to a nearby mill that uses special machines to enhance the taste of the coffee. Professionals called Q-graders are then called to go through the “cupping” process where they evaluate the coffee’s taste and aroma to determine their quality. Workers then load sacks containing up to 70 kilograms of dried and sorted beans onto steel shipping containers. The cargo ships crewed by over 20 people transport coffee from tropical ports to around the world. Once arrived at the destination, dockworkers unload the container, and transport the coffee to a nearby warehouse, and to a roastery. The beans will then go into the roasting machine, stirred and heated. Nearby sensors monitor the coffee’s moisture level, chemical stability, and temperature, while trained coffee engineers manually adjust these levels. This process transforms the seeds into grindable, brewable beans. After roasting, workers pack the beans into five pound bags, which is then delivered into cafes and stores. Towards the final step, the company’s head buyer, who carefully selects the beans, logistics team, who manage delivery routes, and dashing baristas, who serve this caffeinated battery to thousands of hurried customers per day, finish off the job of providing the enchanted coffee to the globe.
It takes hundreds of people to get coffee to its intended destination. Not to mention everyone maintaining the infrastructure that makes this journey possible. And yes-- all that hard work is poured into your morning cup of coffee. As we enjoy every sip, let’s not forget to value the people behind.
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