Myths about Coffee - Myth 2: Coffee Is a Bean

Coffee beans—that’s the second common misconception we're pointing out! Read on!

❌️ Myth: Coffee is a bean.

✅️ Truth: At this moment, you might either be shaking your head in surprise that coffee is not actually a bean, or shaking your head in disbelief that anyone would think that! Either way, there are many who are under the impression that coffee beans are just that—beans—but they’re not.

Because of their shape and size, coffee beans are often assumed to be actual beans. (Although how cocoa beans—which are also not real beans and are enormous—became categorized this way is a mystery!)

Coffee is a seed, and so are beans—but while all beans are seeds, not all seeds are beans. In order to be a bean, a seed has to grow into a legume plant. Coffee, in fact, grows into a fruit plant!

This is more obvious when we look at coffee when it is ripe (before the actual seeds that will eventually be roasted, ground, and brewed into your tasty drink are removed). When coffee is still on the tree and is ready to be picked, it is round, red, and sweet—hence why we call coffee at this stage “coffee cherries.” Although “cherry” is still a slightly misleading term, it’s not as confusing a term as “bean” for this complex fruit!

And much like the cherries that we all know, the seeds of coffee cherries are contained inside the fruit. Unlike a cherry, however, which has a pit around one seed, the coffee cherry has two seeds surrounded by a special membrane called mucilage. In rare instances, a coffee cherry may only have one seed, which is called a peaberry—but that’s a topic for another day!

Did you know that coffee was not a bean?

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A branch of ripening coffee cherries on our farm in Ecuador