The life cycle of a cup of coffee A.J. Jacobs
How many people does it take to make
a cup of coffee?
For many of us, all it takes is a short
walk and a quick pour.
But this simple staple is the result
of a globe-spanning process
whose cost and complexity are far greater
than you might imagine.
It begins in a place like the remote
Colombian town of Pitalito.
Here, family farms have clear cut
local forests to make room
for neat rows of Coffea trees.
These shrub-like plants
were first domesticated in Ethiopia
and are now cultivated throughout
equatorial regions.
Each shrub is filled with small berries
called “coffee cherries.”
Since fruits on the same branch
can ripen at different times,
they’re best picked by hand,
but each farm has its own method
for processing the fruit.
In Pitalito, harvesters toil
from dawn to dusk at high altitudes,
often picking over 25 kilograms per shift
for very low wages.
The workers deliver their picked cherries
to the wet mill.
This machine separates the seeds
from the fruit,
and then sorts them by density.
The heaviest, most flavorful seeds
sink to the bottom of the mill,
where they’re collected
and taken to ferment
in a tub of water for one or two days.
Then, workers wash off the remaining fruit
and put the seeds out to dry.
Some farms use machines for this process,
but in Pitalito, seeds are spread
onto large mesh racks.
Over the next three weeks,
workers rake the seeds regularly
to ensure they dry evenly.
Once the coffee beans are dry,
a truck takes them to a nearby mill
with several specialized machines.
An air blower re-sorts the seeds
by density,
an assortment of sieves filter
them by size,
and an optical scanner sorts by color.
At this point, professionals called
Q-graders select samples
of beans to roast and brew.
In a process called “cupping,”
they evaluate the coffee’s taste, aroma,
and mouthfeel to determine its quality.
These experts give the beans a grade,
and get them ready to ship.
Workers load burlap sacks
containing up to 70 kilograms
of dried and sorted coffee beans
onto steel shipping containers,
each able to carry
up to 21 metric tons of coffee.
From tropical ports, cargo ships
crewed by over 25 people
transport coffee around the world
But no country imports more coffee
than the United States,
with New York City alone consuming
millions of cups every day.
After the long journey
from Colombia to New Jersey,
our coffee beans pass through customs.
Once dockworkers unload the container,
a fleet of eighteen-wheelers transport
the coffee to a nearby warehouse,
and then to a roastery.
Here the beans go into a roasting machine,
stirred by a metallic arm
and heated by a gas-powered fire.
Nearby sensors monitor the coffee’s
moisture level, chemical stability,
and temperature, while trained coffee
engineers manually adjust these levels
throughout the twelve-minute
roasting cycle.
This process releases oil within the seed,
transforming the seeds into grindable,
brewable beans
with a dark brown color and rich aroma.
After roasting, workers pack the beans
into five-pound bags,
which a fleet of vans deliver to cafes
and stores across the city.
The coffee is now so close
you can smell it,
but it needs more help
for the final stretch.
Each coffee company has a head buyer
who carefully selects beans
from all over the world.
Logistics teams manage
bean delivery routes,
and brave baristas across the city
serve this caffeinated elixir
to scores of hurried customers.
All in all, it takes hundreds of people
to get coffee to its intended destination—
and that’s not counting everyone
maintaining the infrastructure
that makes the journey possible.
Many of these individuals work
for low pay in dangerous conditions—
and some aren’t paid at all.
So while we might marvel at the global
network behind this commodity,
let’s make sure we don’t value
the final product
more than the people who make it.