[12][13][14][15] The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the European languages generally appear to have adopted the name from Turkish kahveh, about 1600, perhaps through Italian caffè.

The coffee beans come from the seeds which contained in fruits from trees and shrubs naturally grown in African forests.

[17] Coffee plants are often grown in rows spaced apart depending on the desired density chosen by the farmer.

Ideally, Arabica coffee beans are grown at temperatures between 15 and 24 °C (59 and 75 °F) and Robusta between 24 and 30 °C (75 and 86 °F) and receive between 500 and 3,000 mm (20 and 118 in) of rainfall per year.

The "dry processing" method, cheaper and simpler, was historically used for lower-quality beans in Brazil and much of Africa, but now brings a premium when done well.

Twigs and other foreign objects are separated from the berries and the fruit is then spread out in the sun on concrete, bricks or raised beds for 2–3 weeks, turned regularly for even drying.

In Asia a third type of processing exists, where the Asian palm civet eats coffee berries and excretes the beans.

Once they are finally processed, these beans are called kopi luwak, and are often marketed as a rare and expensive coffee.

When mature, they have a brown to yellow or reddish color and typically weigh 300 to 330 mg per dried coffee bean.

Nonvolatile and volatile compounds in green coffee beans, such as caffeine, deter many insects and animals from eating them.

Nonvolatile nitrogenous compounds (including alkaloids, trigonelline, proteins, and free amino acids) and carbohydrates are of major importance in producing the full aroma of roasted coffee and for its biological action.

Since the mid-2000s, green coffee extract has been sold as a nutritional supplement and has been clinically studied for its chlorogenic acid content and for its lipolytic and weight-loss properties.

[22] The xanthine alkaloids are odorless, but have a bitter taste in water, which is masked by organic acids present in green coffee.

Further, 11-S storage proteins are degraded to their individual amino acids under roasting temperature, thus are an additional source of bitter components due to generation of Maillard reaction products.

[26] High temperature and oxygen concentration and low pH degrade 11-S storage proteins of green coffee beans to low-molecular-weight peptides and amino acids.

Other proteins include enzymes, such as catalase and polyphenol oxidase, which are important for the maturation of green coffee beans.

[27][28] The free hydrophobic amino acids in fresh green coffee beans contribute to the unpleasant taste, making it impossible to prepare a desirable beverage with such compounds.

In fresh green coffee from Peru, these concentrations have been determined as: isoleucine 81 mg/kg, leucine 100 mg/kg, valine 93 mg/kg, tyrosine 81 mg/kg, phenylalanine 133 mg/kg.

Mature brown to yellow coffee beans contain fewer residues of galactose and arabinose at the side chain of the polysaccharides, making the green coffee bean more resistant to physical breakdown and less soluble in water.

Mannitol is a powerful scavenger for hydroxyl radicals, which are generated during the peroxidation of lipids in biological membranes.

On the surface, they include derivatives of carboxylic acid-5-hydroxytryptamides with an amide bond to fatty acids (unsaturated C6 to C24) making up to 3% of total lipid content or 1200 to 1400 microgram/g dried green coffee bean.

The content of chlorogenic acids in dried green coffee beans of arabica is 65 mg/g and of robusta 140 mg/g, depending on the timing of harvesting.

Volatile compounds of green coffee beans include short-chain fatty acids, aldehydes, and nitrogen-containing aromatic molecules, such as derivatives of pyrazines (green-herbaceous-earthy odor).

Often, the recommended times of steeping (20 minutes to 1 hour) extract too much caffeine to provide a pleasant taste.