Green Coffee Beans: 5 Flaws to Avoid
Knowing where to buy wholesale green coffee beans and how to properly roast the beans are two important factors in making a great cup of coffee at home. But you also need to know how to pick out the good beans from those with blemishes. Here are five of the common flaws that afflict green coffee beans and how you can avoid them when purchasing your next batch of bulk coffee.
Those people who regularly buy precisely high grade premium beans in order for them to roast them at home probably have only rarely if ever run across defects in their green coffee beans. On the other hand, the majority of you home roasters will run across these defects quite often.
Faded beans - Green coffee beans can become faded due to a number of factors. Drying them out too much or absorbing too much water are two main causes. When roasting beans that are faded they will come out with a lackluster color despite how long they may be roasted. Even if faded beans are roasted long enough to make an espresso roast, they still will not have the nice dark brown color you would expect. The beans also come out with a soft texture.
Faded beans caused by excess water happen because they are rotting and growing mold on the inside of the bean while they are drying out in a warehouse. The mold actually causes the beans to dry out too much so they go from having too much water to too little.
Not exposing them to sunlight properly and storing the beans for too long a time will also result in faded beans.
Water damaged - When the beans come into contact with water at the wrong stage in the process, a chemical reaction occurs. This causes the beans to start growing mold and the chemical reaction gives the beans a green color, but not the right green you want for green coffee beans.
Insect damaged - Two different kinds of insects can cause damage to green coffee beans. Grape berry moths will inject the fruit, or cherry, of a coffee plant, just as they will the grapes that give them their names, during their mating season while laying their eggs and create small needle-like hole in the fruit as the larvae burrow inside.
Antestia bugs are pests that sucks and damages the coffee beans. This causes the coffee cherry to bruise and leaves spots on the green coffee beans.
Immature - Sometimes due to weather and climate conditions such as drought the coffee beans will be picked too early. Coffee beans that are immature exhibit qualities such as rough surfaces and sticky silvery skins.
Diseased - There are numerous diseases that the coffee farmer must combat and which can negatively affect your green coffee beans including: Coffee Leaf Rust, Coffee Berry Disease, Bacterial Blight, Nematodes, and Leaf Miner.
These diseases will cause the coffee plant to produce its fruit too early and the ensuing bean within the cherry only develops partially. These diminutive beans are harvested with other beans and then the whole lot of them are sold together.
Being able to identify beans that are afflicted by one of these five flaws can help you sort out the cheap green coffee beans with problems from the discount wholesale green coffee beans that are a good deal.