What is a green bean in coffee?

Green bean - or green coffee - refers to the raw, unroasted coffee seed ready for export and roasting. It's the form in which coffee travels from producing countries to roasters around the world, and the product that GCC specialises in sourcing and supplying.

The green bean is the seed of the coffee cherry, stripped of its fruit layers through processing and dried to a stable moisture level of around 10-12%. At this stage it has a pale green to bluish-green colour - the characteristic hue that gives it its name - and a grassy, vegetal smell quite unlike roasted coffee. It's only during roasting that the complex aromatic compounds, flavours, and the familiar brown colour develop.

Green beans are stable for significantly longer than roasted coffee when properly stored. Specialty green coffee in hermetic packaging under good storage conditions can hold its quality for 12-18 months after harvest. This extended shelf life is part of what makes the green coffee supply chain practical - coffee harvested in Ethiopia in November can still be roasting beautifully in a UK roastery the following September.