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Growing coffee
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The initial green coffee cherries are just starting to grow on
our bush
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The ultimate dream for any caffeine loving gardener is to grow their
own arabica coffee beans. What could be better than sitting back on a
relaxing weekend, overlooking your organic garden with a cup of your very
own brew in your hands. Well, this dream inspired us to give it a go,
although as you'll see it is a rather time-intensive pursuit.
Growing conditions
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Coffee plants can grow in full sun, although it's common in South
American coffee plantations to grow coffee plants under the canopy
of Ice Cream Bean trees. This gives the coffee plant a bit of protection
from the sun, and as the Ice Cream Bean tree is a massive legume it
adds nitrogen to the soil for the coffee plants. We do this with our
plants.
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They love a free draining low pH soil (around 5.5 to 6), and a bit
of manure wouldn't go astray.
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Coffee plants hate frost. If you get any frost in your climate you'll
have to resign yourself to keep buying coffee beans, instead of growing
your own.
Garden care
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Coffee plants feed very shallowly in the soil, so it's important
to mulch around them in summer to reduce the risk of stress.
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The flowers look very much like citrus flowers and look very ornamental.
The fruit starts off green, gets progressively bigger and changes
colour to red, and eventually purple.
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You can get your first small crop when the plant is around three
years old, although you get bigger crops when the plant reaches maturity
after about five years.
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The coffee plant's fruit looks a little like a cherry. Some sources
say you can eat the cherry - but obviously you're growing the tree
for the beans.
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During the fruiting season they'll need around an inch of water each
week.
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It's not uncommon for coffee cherries to fall off the tree and start
a new plant.
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In Australia, there are very few pests and diseases for coffee plants.
Our local insect population still hasn't worked out what to do with
them yet!
Harvest time
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After reading our Growing conditions and Garden care sections you're
probably wondering where the "time-intensive pursuit" is.
Welcome to harvest time!
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Depending on who you listen to, pull the coffee cherries off when
they're red or purple. Or do what I do and split the difference, harvesting
them when they're a reddy-purple.
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Throw your cherries into an ordinary clean plastic bucket. Then start
mashing the cherries to get the pulp off. This should expose each
cherry's two beans inside a silvery casing. Sometimes you might need
to manually squash some of the cherries to pop the beans out.
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Add a little water to cover them and a bit of sugar, then put it
in a shady spot and leave it to ferment for four or five days.
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Sift the fermented mixture, isolating the encased beans. The first
skin around the bean is usually very slippery after sitting in water
fermenting. I find the best way to remove this skin is by rubbing
it with an abrasive washing up pad. After you've completed this process
for all beans (which is usually the longest step), wash them and dry
in the shade for two weeks.
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Break off the second casing in whatever way you get success. A nurseryman
suggested to us that you should rub the bean pod against particle
board. I found greater joy putting in the time and physically peeling
off the second silvery skin. Once I accidentally let the beans dry
for three weeks, and I found this was even easier to remove the skin.
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Roast the beans in a medium oven for around 5-6 minutes until you
here the first crack, then reduce the heat for another 5 or 6 minutes
until you hear the second crack, then remove the roasted beans from
the oven and cool quickly (I threw mine into the freezer). You can
then store the beans in a cool dark place before grinding.
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Now you know why coffee is so expensive in the shop. It's because
of the processing needed to turn that cherry into a roasted bean.
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We've gone through this whole process for two seasons. How did it
go? The first time I didn't have much success - I got one cup of coffee
(after about four to five hours work), and it didn't taste that great.
By the second time I'd had much greater success thanks to some excellent
tips from Dick Stenmark's excellent
coffee roasting page. Now, I can't wait to roast my next bunch
of coffee beans!
Last Updated
17 November, 2008
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