Mocha

Over the years, one of the most confusing issues that coffee lovers had needed clarification on was regarding the names for coffee blends.  Early names given for types of coffee tended to refer to its places of origin.  However, these names were soon used to describe coffee beans produced in other areas of the country.  This is particularly true in the case of Mocha coffee.

Mocha coffee refers to an Arabica coffee plant that was grown near the Yemeni port city of Mocha.  It is one of the oldest types of traditional coffees and is still loved today.  Its taste has been described as balanced, as a cup of Mocha coffee will have a medium to full-body and good acidity.  However, the most loved aspect of a cup of Mocha coffee is its aftertaste, which has undertones of chocolate despite the lack of actual chocolate content.  This sweet flavor can be seen by the fact that there is now a specialty Mocha beverage that combines coffee with cocoa, which is also available in a type of mocha ice cream.

The fact that Mocha coffee beans are rare and difficult to obtain, Mocha coffee is now treated like a fine, estate coffee despite the fact that it is not really an estate coffee.  Its current status however can't compete with its prior reputation, where it became the first type of coffee enjoyed by Europeans.  Its popularity is a major reason why many other types of coffee beans have been falsely classified as Mocha.

Once Mocha coffee became popular in Europe, all other coffee beans produced in Arabia became classified as Mochas.  Additionally, coffee grown in areas of the West Indies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was marketed as Mochas.  However, as many coffee lovers know, coffee beans are greatly affected by the areas that they are produced in.  The soil, altitude, and climate of a coffee growing area will have great influence on the coffee's characteristics, from its body to its flavor to its aroma.  This is evident in the fact that Mocha coffee is distinguished for its heavy body and unique flavors that are absent from the nearby Ethiopian coffee.

As a result, the only true Mocha coffee is the ones that have been produced in the Yemeni port city of Mocha.  Mocha coffee used to grow in the hillside surrounding the town of Mocha, where it would become exported to other areas in the world through the port city of Mocha.  It is cultivated and processed in a specific way that has been used for centuries.

First of all, the Mocha coffee seedlings are grown in nurseries.  From there, they are transplanted to terraced farms that reside at altitudes between 3,000 feet and 7,000 feet.  As a type of Arabica coffee, Mocha coffee plants thrive in high altitudes and the specific climatic conditions of the port city of Mocha contributes to the coffee's unique flavor.

As this part of the world is renowned for its lack of rain, irrigations systems must provide the coffee plants with controlled constant moisture.  This dry atmosphere affects the soil and air, which results in coffee beans grown on these Mocha coffee plants that are remarkable for its unusually small size and extremely hard feel.  Mocha coffee beans tend to range in color from pale green to yellow and these strange characteristics results in a cup of coffee that some has described as spicy, nutty, and fruity.

The dry conditions present in growing Mocha coffee have not only affected the taste of the Mocha coffee bean but also its production technique.  Due to the fact that this coffee growing region is very remote and requires donkeys to be carried out of the steep valleys of the area, Mocha coffee production is the most primitive in the world.  However, this ensures that Mocha coffee is grown organically, which most feel that coffee grown organically results in a better taste.  Considering how the difficulty of carrying heavy fertilizers to this coffee growing area outweighs the benefits of increased yields, coffee lovers can expect Mocha coffee to keep on being a standard bearer for coffee taste.  Which is exactly how it should be for one of the most original and historic coffee types.