JERRY: I love my morning cup of coffee
and I know I'm not alone in this
because each year, nationally,
we consume 1.96 million 60-kilo bags of beans,
and that approximates to
the average Australian consuming almost two kilos of beans every year.
Now, while most of our coffee is imported,
I'm going to show you how to make your very own homegrown variety.
Coffee is grown commercially in humid subtropical areas
like Queensland's Atherton Tablelands.
Australia's first commercial coffee crop
was grown on Sydney's North Shore,
but it will also grow quite happily as far south as chilly Melbourne.
I grow two varieties of coffee in my garden.
The first is 'First Fleet'
and it gets its name after the way in which it arrived into the country.
It's a full-sized plant.
It'll grow between three and five metres high
and when the fruit are ripe, they're typically red.
The other variety I grow is 'Kamerunga Dwarf'.
This was developed by Queensland's Department of Primary Industries
and it produces yellow cherries.
The plant grows to half the size of my 'First Fleet' coffee.
Now, while these cherries are edible,
it's the seeds that are hidden within which coffee drinkers crave,
and they're known as coffee beans.
When you're growing coffee,
the biggest enemies are drought and sunburn.
They really need protection from hot western sun and drying winds,
so I'm growing mine in the shelter and shade of a fence
and neighbouring trees.
To get a good crop in Brisbane,
they really need a reliable supply of water,
so in hot, dry, windy weather, I water mine deeply twice a week.
In warmer areas where there's enough rainfall,
coffee has become an environmental weed,
including in both Queensland and New South Wales.
Birds eat the berries and can spread the plant near and far.
If you want to grow coffee,
check it's not a concern in your area.
Prune to keep it to a manageable size
and harvest the fruit before the birds get to them.
You prune coffee annually after you've picked the harvest,
and the aim of pruning is to reduce the number of laterals
to increase airflow,
and that improves the set and quality of the fruit.
Now, coffee produce fruit on the new season's growth,
so, the idea of reducing some of the stems back to the base
encourages long shoots like this
and then they flower and fruit evenly.
After flowering, I nourish them with iron chelates and potash
to encourage fruit formation.
Now, I'm not the only one that enjoys my coffee.
Occasionally, possums and flying foxes will eat the fruit,
and when they do, I enclose my trees in this wildlife-friendly mesh.
Now, you've got to remember to also tie it in at the bottom,
otherwise they may sneak in underneath.
To grow coffee, sow fresh seed on fresh propagating mix.
You sow it on the surface
and you only need to water them maybe once a week or once a fortnight.
Too much water can actually impede germination.
In fact, I find it much easier to allow a few seeds to germinate
at the base of the mother plant
and when they're big enough to handle, then I pop them up.
This is the 'Kamerunga Dwarf' and this is the 'First Fleet'
and both are 18 months old.
And now for the fun part - how to roast your coffee.
I'm currently getting two kilos of beans from both of my trees.
There's plenty on this 'Kamerunga Dwarf', so let's work with these.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
Firstly, wash the cherries.
Remove the bean from the fruit of the cherry.
The flesh of the fruit is sweet and can be eaten fresh or dried.
I put them in my muesli.
Place your beans in some water, leaving them to ferment for a week.
Change the water when it becomes cloudy overnight.
A week later, strain and dry the beans on a tea towel.
Put a wok on a burner and get it as high as it will go.
Dry-roast the beans in the wok
while moving and monitoring the colour constantly.
If you don't have a wok, you can use a pot,
an air fryer or even a popcorn maker.
When they're a nice even dark brown, turn off the heat.
Place the beans on a flat surface inside a tea towel
and use a rolling pin to separate the outer skins from the beans.
Next, you remove the skin fragments from the beans.
This is a process known as winnowing.
Then all you have to do is grind the beans
and store them in an airtight container.
It's a bit of an effort
to make a cup of your very own homegrown, homemade coffee,
but the flavour is as rich and as strong and as bitter
as any other coffee I've ever bought.
Plus, it's a very welcome way to start the day.
Ah.