What Makes Coffee Good?

Good coffee comes from good coffee-growing regions. Growing conditions like altitude, latitude, soil, sun, and wind all contribute to making a coffee region produce premium coffee beans.

Between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, from 23.5 degrees above the equator to 23.5 degrees below it, is a region known as the coffee belt. Indigenous to Ethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula, coffee is now grown at these latitudes in 50 different countries, from Indonesia to Guatemala to Kenya, on family farms and large estates.

The Americas: The countries of Central America, Mexico, and the northern parts of South America, as well as island growers in Hawaii and the Caribbean, produce balanced, light to medium bodied coffees with clean, lively flavors and crisp acidity. Other countries include Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru.

Asia Pacific: Often referred to as Indonesian coffees, these earthy, full-bodied beans brew a smooth cup with low acidity and occasional herbal notes that deliver a heavier, deeper mouth feel. The density and sturdiness of flavor is prized for low notes in blends. Pacific coffees include beans from the Indonesian islands of Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, and coffee from Papua New Guinea.

Africa and Arabia: Kenya, Yemen, and Ethiopia are some of the region’s most notable coffee producers. With medium to full body, the coffees from this region range from the elegantly complex to the exotically spicy. With berry or floral aromas and hints of spice, citrus, berry, or cocoa on the palate, these coffees embody the flavors of the region. Countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

There are two predominant methods to separate a coffee seed (the bean) from its cherry (the coffee fruit): the natural (or dry) method, and the washed (or wet) method. There is a third, called semi-washed, which combines elements from the natural and washed methods.

Natural (Dry) Method
In the dry method, beans are picked and dried on the ground. Because the cherry is kept intact as it dries, flavors from the coffee fruit are imparted to the bean, accounting for exotic fruity, earthy, or cocoa notes.

The outside fruit is removed through a hulling process of grinding or milling and the remaining green coffee beans go through a second drying lasting three to seven days in mechanical dryers or in the sun. In some countries, this is the only method due to the limited availability of water. Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia (Sumatra, Sulawesi)

Washed (Wet) Method
In the wet method, ripened coffee cherries are processed immediately. They are washed and sorted in running water, and then fed through a pulping machine, which removes the pulp from the bean, but retains the mucilage layer. Next, beans are sluiced to fermentation tanks, where they undergo a series of enzymatic reactions. Once these have taken place, the beans are washed again and dried in mechanical dryers or on bean-drying patios, where they are raked to evenly expose the beans to heat and air. The coffee is then cured for several weeks in storage, after which it is hulled to remove the parchment skin on the outside of the bean. It is then bagged and made ready for shipment. Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Hawaii, Honduras, Indonesia (Java), Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Nicaragua, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Zimbabwe.

Semi-Washed Method
In this process, ripe cherries are picked and then dried for a few days. They are sorted and pulped using some water, as in the washed method, but without fermentation. Pulping in this manner removes all of the outer casings of the beans, which are dried either in mechanical dryers or in the sun. They are then graded for quality and bagged.
Brazil, Sulawesi, Sumatra

Starbucks uses an integrated approach to sustainable farming that includes paying farmers premium prices for sustainably grown coffee, employing C.A.F.E (Coffee and Farmer Equity) practices, a set of sustainable buying guidelines, providing access to affordable credit, investing in social development, and purchasing conservation and certified coffees.

Organic
Coffee that is grown without the use of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers. Growing organically means neither the farmers nor the environment is exposed to these substances, creating a healthier, sustainable future for farming communities. Beans grown organically are also processed in certified mills.

Shade Grown
Arabica grows best in partial shade, underneath taller trees and canopied forests. In 1998 we partnered with Conservation International to encourage the production of shade-grown coffee, consequently supporting biodiversity of birds and wildlife, reducing soil erosion, and improving soil quality.

Fair Trade Certified™
The Fair Trade Certified™ label certifies that the farmers who grew the coffee received a minimum price. Fair Trade guidelines help build direct trading relationships for farmers, and also ensure that international Fair Trade standards are met. Those standards address decent working and living conditions, freedom of association, sustainable farming practices that protect the environment, and access to capital.

For most people, buying coffee is a matter of purchasing a week’s worth of beans at a neighborhood coffee shop. For Starbucks green coffee buyers, that trip around the corner takes them across the equator and up a mountainside, to a tabletop coffee roaster on a remote coffee farm. Our green coffee buyers, many of them former baristas, spend more time on coffee farms than any other coffee company’s, building personal relationships with farmers to nurture the highest quality beans, year after year.

Coffee is the second-most traded commodity (after oil) on earth. Each year, the equivalent of 400 billion cups of coffee are bought and sold in 60-kilogram increments. Starbucks buys only about 1% of this annual crop.