The Coffee You Keep
By Elaine Gale
Special to The Bee
Published: Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1D


On countless steep, tree-lined hillsides all over the world, a particular type of tree erupts about once a year, depending on the rain, with lush, white flowers all over its branches.

About nine months after the glorious bloom, a round, red cherry will emerge from the delicate flower.

This cherry holds something unexpected in its flesh: two raw coffee beans, sitting belly to belly.

These beans will be picked, depulped, washed, fermented, dried, milled, sorted, bagged, shipped, roasted and eventually packaged for you to buy, drink and enjoy.

Not all coffee consumers know their coffee was once a cherry, which was once a flower.

However, if local coffee roaster Jon Rogers and his family had their way, American coffee drinkers would know everything about the origins of their coffee – from the conditions on the farm where the beans grew to understanding the subtleties of the coffee's taste with that first bleary-eyed sip each morning.

Read the entire article here: http://www.sacbee.com/822/story/2315648.html