Just Coffee, Please

People in groups of two, three, or more stroll into coffee shops all across America and utter the phrase, "Just coffee, please" as they take their seats, open their newspapers, or converse with one another. The message that they are conveying is that they don't need a menu, and that they won't be ordering food of any kind. They simply want a cup of coffee.

These folks expect that they will be served a good cup of coffee, and that makes the coffee bean growers, those who harvest the coffee beans, those who transport the coffee beans, those who roast the coffee beans, and those who grind the coffee beans and package the coffee all smile with satisfaction at a job well done, and proves yet again that they all have job security. People drink coffee and they will keep right on drinking coffee.

The process of producing good coffee beans to getting those coffee beans made into coffee and into the cup of a coffee drinker is a long and arduous task that involves a great many people. Coffee is big business...very big business.

Coffee trees thrive only in sheltered, mountainous, subtropical climates. Coffee trees are temperamental -- they must be shaded by larger trees to protect them, and their tender fruit and coffee beans must be harvested by hand. Harvesting coffee beans is a back-breaking job that can only be done by people who can tell a ripe coffee bean from an unripe coffee bean. Ripe coffee beans must be picked, and green coffee beans must be left undisturbed so that they continue the ripening process and can be picked later.

Coffee beans must be carefully handled during transportation to avoid bruising the beans. Roasting must be done under very controlled conditions and grinding under conditions that are equally well controlled.

Think about that the next time that you say, "Just coffee, please."

By Miodrag Trajkovic