Quest for the Supreme Bean- part two

Coffea Arabica
Miles and miles of Arabica coffee trees. Arabica coffee is far superior to the lesser quality of Robusta coffee. Arabica coffee is much harder to grow and cultivate but produces a more supreb flavor and taste. Robusta on the other hand is used mostly in instant coffee.

Arabica coffee must be grown at a higher elevation so a lot of time it is grown on the side of a mountain.

The Lujiang Coffee farm covers most of the mountainside in the foreground of most of these pictures. There are over 30 employed to cover the picking of all these coffee trees.

When coffee trees bloom a white jasmine-like flower appears for a few days and then disappears making way for small green coffee cherries. As the coffee cherry ripens it turns yellow, then red, and then deep red. When it has reached its deepest red it is now ready to be picked. Arabica beans are almost always picked by hand to ensure that every coffee cherry is perfectly ripe.

Unfortunately standards for Yunnan coffee are a bit lower so you can still see about 15% of the cherries that were picked before they fully ripened. Yunnan coffee is continuing to improve as more and more investment is poured into the crop and stricter standards are enforced. Beans of this region in Yunnan are said to have a stronger and deeper flavor than beans in the other major growing regions around the province.

Below you can see another picture of the coffee cherries as well one of a coffee picker way off in the distance.