One bean’s journey
Alborada — a fictional roastery
Alborada — a fictional roastery
Alborada · Chapter I — The cherry
Coffee begins as fruit. Coffea arabica flowers white, then sets small red cherries that take six to eight months to ripen at altitude. Inside each, usually two seeds grow pressed face to face — that press is why a coffee bean has one flat cheek. This is the story of one of them.
Chapter II — The drying yard
Pulped and washed, the seeds dry inside pale parchment skins on raised beds — turned by hand, shaded at noon, for one to two weeks, until they hold roughly eleven percent moisture. Hulled, the seed beneath is glass-hard and waxy green. Ours is the one catching the light.
10–12% moisture · raised drying beds
Chapter III — The roast
In the drum, green turns straw, then cinnamon, then brown, as Maillard reactions build hundreds of new aromatic compounds. Near 196 °C the seed cracks aloud — steam and carbon dioxide splitting it open — and it swells by half or more. Roasters call it first crack, and steer the whole roast by that sound.
First crack ≈ 196 °C · development counted from the sound
Chapter IV — The grind & the bloom
Grinding multiplies the bean’s surface many hundreds of times — and starts the clock, because aromatics escape fast. When hot water first hits fresh grounds, the bed swells and bubbles: the bloom, carbon dioxide created during the roast escaping all at once. Brewers pour, then wait half a minute and let it breathe.
Bloom ≈ 30–45 s · CO₂ escaping the grounds
Chapter V — The cup
Pulled as espresso, the same carbon dioxide returns one last time — emulsified with coffee oils under nine bars of pressure into crema, the hazel foam that crowns the cup. Stone fruit, cocoa, a honeyed finish.
Lot 34 — washed arabica, medium roast. Grown at 1,900 m. 250 g — $18
Alborada is a fictional roastery and Lot 34 is not for sale — this page is a design demonstration, rendered live with three.js r160.