Every day around the world, 1,6 billion cups of coffee are drunk, and each one of them "flows" with the efforts of about 60 million people involved in the process of growing, processing and preparing this plant that arrives from plantations in Latin America.
The road from those plantations to Montenegro is about 10.000 kilometers, and to prepare a perfect instant coffee you need less than a minute, they reminded from the Nestle company, explaining the stages that preceded the moment when the cup of coffee is on our table.
The coffee plant is extremely sensitive to the weather, and it takes about four years to see the first fruits. When the fruit is ripe, it is usually harvested by hand, because this immediately separates the ripe from the unripe coffee beans.
The next stage is the separation of the fruit from the husk by drying the coffee beans in the sun or using special washing techniques. Dry coffee beans are usually greenish in color, so this stage is called "green coffee".
By combining different beans, several types of coffee can be obtained, and from the moment when the perfect mixture is made, the most important step in making coffee begins - roasting.
The way the beans are combined and roasted affects the type, taste and aroma of the coffee. Coffee contains about 800 different aroma components, which makes it one of the most aromatic food products.
Coffee beans get their excellent aroma only after roasting. The length of frying directly determines the intensity - light frying for a mild taste, medium for rich, and strong frying for a more pronounced taste and aroma. After roasting, grinding follows, which completes the process of making "home coffee".
In order to get instant coffee, it is necessary to go a step further - drying with hot or cold air.
If it is dried with hot air, the coffee in a liquid state is sprayed over the hot air. This is when small drops of coffee are formed, which dry and turn into a fine powder when they fall and are connected into recognizable dry granules.
If cold drying is applied, the coffee in its liquid state is frozen at minus 40 degrees Celsius, forming a thin, fine layer that is then broken into small, lighter-colored coffee crystals.
These processes are responsible for the fact that, unlike "homemade", instant coffee is easily soluble in water and quickly prepared, it has all the characteristics of home-made coffee except for the residue that does not leave in the cup.
The aroma of coffee is determined by many different factors, including the type, the climate, the soil where it was grown, and the climate itself.
There are two types of coffee: arabica and robusta. Both species grow in tropical zones with a warm, humid climate, but at different altitudes.
Arabica is known as Brazilian coffee, it grows at higher altitudes, it is distinguished by its quality and low caffeine content. When preparing instant coffee, this type of coffee is usually treated by freezing, and the result is fine, light-colored crystals, characteristic of premium quality coffee. It is more sensitive than the robusta and that is why it succeeds best in the mountain climate.
On the other hand, robusta, which is mainly grown in Africa, represents about 70 percent of the world's coffee production.
As its name suggests, robusta beans are more "robust" (stronger, tougher) than arabica, and can be grown at both low and high altitudes.
Unlike Arabica, it is more often treated with the method of drying with hot air, which gives the recognizable appearance of instant coffee in granules. It is characterized by strength and low acidity.
In addition to traditional coffee growers, such as Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia, now also China, which is a century-old tea producer, announces mass planting of coffee, which will certainly change the current map and perhaps bring a new aroma, Nestle announced.
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