The secret garden — how coffee is grown

When buying coffee, we increasingly consider not just its species or origin, but how it was grown. Growing consumer awareness over the past decade has brought welcome interest in sustainable and fair-trade cultivation. We are more inclined to choose coffee from small farms using methods that minimise environmental impact than from vast fields focused mainly on quantity. Alongside this comes curiosity about farm life and how coffee is actually grown.

Where should you establish a coffee farm?

Growing coffee requires commitment, knowledge and time. Neither Arabica nor Robusta matures in five minutes: it can take up to five years before the first harvest. You may also have to move, preferably near the equator. Coffee thrives in the Coffee Belt, so a plot in Ethiopia, Colombia or Sumatra would be a good start.

There are exceptions outside the usual belt, such as farms in Nepal's Himalayas, but working there would involve more mountaineering than our fitness could probably handle!

Escape civilisation?

Mother Nature has a great deal to say about a coffee farm. Not every region allows thousands of hectares of cultivation. Sunny mountain terrain limits plot sizes, while distance from cities can mean less pollution. On the other hand, remoteness makes services such as machinery maintenance harder to access.

The result may be a return from modern mechanisation to traditional, manual harvesting and processing. This can limit quantity while benefiting quality. Traditionally produced beans can delight coffee lovers with a complex bouquet, beautifully revealed by a modern AeroPress.

From seed to field

In the growing schedule described here, seeds are sown between June and December. Seedlings spend their first months in nurseries, receiving more space as they develop. When moved to the field, they are planted around one to two metres apart, depending on the variety.

Coffee is a sociable plant, so give it good neighbours — ideally taller ones with large leaves to shelter delicate fruit from excessive sun. Banana plants and orange trees can do the job beautifully.

Watch out for harmful neighbours

Not every plant will feel at home on a particular farm. Experienced growers study soil, the duration and intensity of sunlight and many other factors before selecting varieties. They also need to understand local wildlife.

Some regions harbour enemies such as the coffee berry borer, which eats beans from within and is a serious problem in Colombia, or African moth species that lay eggs inside the fruit. More disease- and pest-resistant varieties need less monitoring; sensitive ones, such as Bourbon and Typica, require regular checks.

Daily care is labour-intensive. Pruning plants, collecting fallen leaves that can harbour mould, and applying fertiliser are just some essential tasks.

Coffee in the cloud

Delicate coffee plants face tropical diseases. In 2012, a wave of disease swept through South and Central American growing regions, damaging crops and threatening local economic stability. The culprit was Hemileia vastatrix, a fungus in the rust-fungus group that devastated farms within months.

To help prevent a repeat, coffee and technology enthusiasts turned to the digital cloud. They developed an app functioning as an early-warning system. CoffeeCLOUD, used beyond Guatemala too, helps collect, process and analyse information from hundreds of farms simultaneously, warning of the risk of another fungal outbreak. Modern technology thus helps protect some of the world's most traditional coffee-growing communities.

As you can see, cultivation demands commitment and knowledge as well as a willingness to face equatorial nature and its whims. If you are not ready to move near the equator, simply explore the Coffee Belt's finest beans in our welcome sets.