Coffee beans are the seeds of the edible fruit of the Coffea plant, and the source of the coffee. The beans are roasted in different degrees depending on the desired flavor that it is meant to achieve.

Coffee plants are originally from tropical and sub-tropical regions. They tend to grow on high altitudes of cold and humid weathers.

There are two types of coffee beans: the Arabica and the Robusta. The first one, represents a 60% of worldwide produced coffee, and the second one, represents the resultant 40%. Coffee beans are an important export product, since it is one of the world's most widely consumed beverage, and it accounts over 50% of some developing nations' foreign exchange earnings.

Market overview and production

Brazil produces about 45% of the world's total coffee exports, most grown in Brazil. The United States imports more coffee than any other nation.

When the fruit shows a brown, yellow or reddish color, it means it is ripe. The harvest is almost always handpicked, using either:

• Selective picking: only the ripe fruits are removed. This is often used to produce higher-quality coffee, since it consists on picking the cherries at their ripest.
• Strip-picking: all the fruits are removed from the same branch at once. This method is indiscriminate and will harvest unripe, ripe and over-ripe fruit. It is possible to improve quality after strip-picking, but it would take a careful selection.