Australian conditions suited for coffee growth
Current production of Australian coffee occurs as far north as the Skybury plantation in northern Queensland and as far south as Coffs Harbour in New South Wales. Byron Bay has several coffee estates and small co-operatives which benefit from the rich volcanic soil and frost free ambient climate. Although arabica coffees grow best at 900 to 1200 meters Australian producers have shown that good quality coffee can also be grown at an altitude of 15 to 900 meters.

As ripening commences, the coffee cherry changes
from green to red, then to dark red-purple and
eventually black when over-mature.

Processing of the bean
There are two processing methods to obtain green bean which is used for roasting. The simplest method is `dry processing' where coffee is harvested over-ripe and then dried to 10-12% moisture. The dried skin and parchment is then removed by hulling, leaving green bean coffee. This method is commonly used to process robusta coffee and produces a lower quality product than `wet processing'. In wet processing, coffee is harvested as ripe, red cherry. The cherry is pulped to remove the two seeds from the skin. The seeds are fermented to remove the sticky mucilage layer around them and then dried to 11% moisture. The parchment and silver skin are then removed by hulling and polishing, leaving green bean coffee. The bean is referred to as `green bean' because of its colour. It normally takes between 6 and 7kg of cherry to produce 1kg of green bean coffee. This method of processing produces the best quality coffee. Most of the coffee produced in Australia is processed using the `wet' method. The problem with this has been that to produce top quality coffee all the cherry must be red ripe and immature green cherries must be removed.    Photo shows Rebecca Zentveld,"Queen of the Bean" assessing the quality of the roast.