La Finca Coffee & Bakery 's Podcast

From Cherry to Cup: Unearthing Coffee's Journey with Lee Gonzales of La Finca Coffee

• Lee Gonzales • Episode 2

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Where Does Coffee Come From?

Ever wondered where your morning coffee really comes from? Discover the journey from bean to cup with Lee Gonzales, the passionate owner, founder, and CEO of La Finca Coffee & Bakery, as he takes us through the fascinating origins and intricate processes behind our favorite brew. Did you know coffee is actually a fruit that looks like a cherry? Lee breaks down the surprising beginnings of coffee and its transformation from a cherry-like fruit to the aromatic coffee beans that fuel our mornings.

Lee also explores the geographical regions known as the coffee belt, where coffee thrives, and explains the meticulous harvesting process. Get an inside look at the three primary methods of drying coffee—natural, washed, and honey—and how each technique uniquely impacts the flavor profile of your coffee. Whether you're a coffee aficionado or just love a good cup of joe, this episode offers a treasure trove of insights into what makes your brew so special. Join us and enrich your coffee knowledge with this captivating conversation!

To learn more about La Finca Coffee & Bakery go to:
https://lafincacoffeebakery.com/

La Finca Coffee & Bakery
7511 Main Street, #150
Frisco, Texas 75034
972.486.9600

2281 E. University Dr #10
Prosper, Texas 75078
972.503.9400

Speaker 1:

welcome to the la finca coffee and bakery podcast, where coffee beans and connections are brewed to perfection. Leading the way is our owner, founder and ceo of the baristas, lee gonzalez ever wondered where your morning coffee really comes from.

Speaker 2:

Join us for a chat with the owner of La Finca Coffee and Bakery, where we uncover the journey from being to cup at your favorite Frisco and Prosper coffee shops. Welcome back everyone. I'm Sofia Yvette, co-host, slash producer. Back in the studio with Lee Gonzalez. Lee, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

It's going well. It's good to be here again.

Speaker 2:

Great Well. So, Lee, where does coffee come from?

Speaker 3:

So coffee is a very interesting product that many people don't realize where it actually comes from. An interesting fact that a lot of people are surprised by that coffee is actually a fruit. I don't know if you you knew that. If that coffee is is actually a fruit, I would closely describe it. If you just looking at it in appearance it would be very similar to a cherry. If you think about a cherry, you have the pulp of the fruit on the outside and then in the center you have the, the pit of the cherry. Well, in regards coffee, that pit would just basically be the coffee beans, that what we're used to seeing Coffee beans. You have two of those that fit on the smooths, on the flat side, together, and that is basically like you would think of, like the pit of a cherry, but in a coffee cherry that's the inside, the seed, that's on the inside of it. So that's really the start of the process. Is, you know, is those beans that are inside the coffee plant. So that's like the interesting. You know that's the start of it. But you sit here and say, well, that looks nothing like what I see when I get a bag of coffee, when I buy one, maybe from the store or look inside of a coffee bag and it goes through this transformation, that how does that product get from being a fruit to what we know as coffee in a bag of coffee and that process it starts out. Really, first thing is, you know, is that coffee is only grown primarily, at least naturally is grown in what is called like a coffee belt. If you take the center of the earth, you go around the world between the tropic of capricorn and the tropic of cancer, which is the north and south borders, above the and below the equator, those are the climates, the regions where coffee grows in itself. So that's the first part, is coffees come from certain geographic regions and that's why you find certain countries are where you see where coffee comes from. That process, like I said, where it's grown there, the coffee has to go through a process from being taken care of to maturity, where, when you think about when you see a fruit that's ripened, it has to be picked at the right time. So you have to. Most of them, you would see them, they would look red like a ripe fruit, but in some instances there are some coffee varietals that might be yellow, different tones, but they have to be ripened. So at that point you have what is the labor of someone coming in and harvesting that coffee?

Speaker 3:

Once it's picked, there's three different primary processes of coffee. All coffee has to be dried and the only difference is is that the order is dried in. If it's dried with the coffee, the pulp of the fruit on it, that would be called a natural. The pulp of the fruit on it, that would be called a natural. If it's deep pulped, first run through a machine that will take all that pulp off and just leave the coffee beans, and then that's what's dried, that would be called washed. And then there's this process, kind of some quasi in the middle, the pulp is taken off. A little bit of a layer of mucilage is left on. That would be called a honey. It's more not because of flavor but because the color, primarily that it gets. But in all three methods what happens is that coffee has to be dried, and so it's when it's dried.

Speaker 3:

If it's dried with the pulp on, the pulp off, with that mucilage on, is the difference. But from they all have to be dried and they would either be dried on a uh, maybe what they call a patio, which would be a cement, uh, a big, just cement area in the sun where they would lay them all out, let the sun do its work for approximately three weeks. They would turn them regularly so that they're drying equally, so that they don't mold and that that would be drying on on just the cement floor. Others, uh, are used what they call African beds, which are these raised beds and they have like a mesh net on the bottom and the beans are, so they're able to get air from the bottom and the top. But same thing, they're put out in the sun, they're dried. But either way, no matter the process, they all have to be dried. The method of drying will either cause it.

Speaker 3:

If it's dried, the fruit on the natural, a little bit more fruit flavored, you'll get those fruit forward coffees, and so when you think about, everybody thinks, oh, ethiopians taste very frugal, they're very bright. It's primarily because of the drying method, a little bit the varietal, but they're all dried. Most ethiopians are natural, so they very fruit forward, um, and then, um, like I said, the ones that are deep pulp first don't have as long of a contact with the fruit. So they still may have some fruit flavor to them, but a lot less, a lot more subtle fruit flavor. But at that point, as the beans are dried, then they are then taken and stored. That becomes where you have your dry mills. The wet mill is where you're depulping and drying. The dry mill is where now you're bagging and you're processing, separating by quality, you're separating by size, you're taking defects out. So that would be the dry mill process.

Speaker 3:

But at that point they would then get what we typically think of the burlap coffee bags. A lot of times nowadays they use what it's called grain pro bags on the inside of those to keep them fresher longer, and they get bagged up, put together to be able to ship, be shipped to wherever their ultimate destination may be being. And most coffee travels around the world in a container ship, a container ship and may take, you know, 30, 60 days to get to the country where it was grown and processed, to the country, in our instance, here in the United States, and they would go into one of the port of entries. New Jersey, houston, there's an, oakland there's some different ports are primarily used and from there there would be stored in warehouses and then you have semi trucks move them to people who what they call importers, who bring coffee in. At that point they would be brought to someone such as ourselves.

Speaker 3:

We roast coffee, we buy bag coffee in bulk, we have those bags shipped to us and that's where we go through the roasting process. So it's a little bit of a quick story, but that's how it gets from the actual field where it's grown, to a roaster that actually will take that coffee being what is called green coffee at that point and roast it. Now, green coffee in itself looks nothing like roasted coffee. What we think about uh, it actually has is very tan, lighter, and then the roasting process. Is that what then takes it and turns it into the product. Now that we we're familiar with that. We know uh, in in and understand is the brown. You know different shades of brown, but the, the tan to brown, to sometimes darker colored beans that are roasted. That we're used to seeing.

Speaker 3:

And just a quick process.

Speaker 3:

There's a lot of hands, people that go in that process, from a farmer to people who are hired to pick the coffee beans when they're ripened, to those who do the processing to dry it, to those who do the dry mill process of packing it up, to logistics companies that move it all around the world, then to the hands of a roaster who has to then roast it, then ultimately it gets in the hands of your barista who would then take it and prepare it.

Speaker 3:

So can you imagine going through all that work, doing all that work in there, how many hands it passes through, the different lives that pass through and ultimately a breeze at the end to not take the care to serve it properly? So there are a lot of hands involved and so we all not only want to we start out the roasting process ourselves, but in our shops where we serve it, we take the importance of serving it in a way that's quality. If you think about so much work, preparation, thousands of miles that this coffee has traveled just to not do it justice, it's not only the coffee itself but the work of a farmer themselves. So we find it very important to present it well to an end customer such as our audience.

Speaker 2:

And for all the work that it takes to bring these coffee beans. What inspired you to bring these unique coffee beans to Frisco and Prosper?

Speaker 3:

I will tell you, more than anything else, if you ask me, is that when I started traveling to coffee farms and seeing these, this process myself, and started meeting the people who were actually doing the work, these are real people.

Speaker 3:

These are real families who are putting food on their tables. They're trying to educate, you know, give an education to their kids, feed their families, make a living and this is many of them. This is a livelihood for them and this is what they have. They're located in remote areas typically and when you see, when you see that there's a real person behind this, that a lot of hard work is, I remember being in the in the mountains of chapas and carrying a bag of these coffee cherries that we as a group picked as part of this trip, and it was probably a bag that only weighed like 50 pounds, right, but walking it down the mountain and thinking about that's what these people do every single day, and many of them were ladies who were doing this work, and you see the hard work they do, the effort they put into it. That really inspired me to not only bring that coffee or serve it well, but to bring those stories as well.

Speaker 2:

Wow, love it, lee. We'll catch you on the next episode. Have a fantastic rest of your day.

Speaker 1:

Thank you Thanks for tuning in to the La Finca Coffee and Bakery podcast, where coffee beans and relationships are always on the brew. Visit us online at lafincacoffeebakerycom. That's lafincacoffeebakerycom. Or drop by our Frisco or Prosper locations for a nurturing cup of goodness.