For a tree grown in over 70 countries, from Indonesia to Brazil, it’s curious how narrow a range of conditions is required to produce quality ‘beans’ and how relatively small the total output is.

The word ‘beans’ is deliberately in single-quote marks, since the thing that gets roasted and ground to make the drink isn’t really a bean at all, it’s a seed.

In particular, it’s the seed of a fruit that grows on trees that can easily reach twenty feet or more. Some wild varieties grow to over 45 feet or 15m. Most of those seeds come in pairs, though there is a variety that produces only one (the peaberry). The berry resembles a cranberry, with a sweet pulp covered by a membrane called a silverskin.

Most of the world’s coffe is grown in a band roughly 25 degrees north and south of the equator. Coffee grows best where the temperatures are between 60F (15C) and 70F (21C) and rainfall averages six inches per month or more.

Loamy, good-draining soil is needed and also helpful is high humidity - plenty of mist and cloud at the high elevations, over 3000 ft (915m) for the good stuff. At these elevations the oxygen content is lower, so the trees take longer to mature.

The robusta (coffea canephora) goes into making the majority of coffee because it can be grown at lower altitudes and is more disease resistant. But it’s the high-altitude coffea arabica that forms the base of a gourmet cup.

Diffuse light and moderate winds are helpful, both of which are sometimes produced by deliberately growing in the shelter and shade. By contrast, wine grapes like hot sun and lots of it.

Once planted, the tree takes about five years to mature to first crop and even then a single tree will only make enough for about two pounds (1 kilogram) of coffee.

Those two pounds equal about 2,000 beans, (correct or not, it’s the standard term), usually hand-picked by skilled manual laborers. Coffee bean harvesting is a skill developed over time, where the picker learns to select good beans and discard the bad. Bean by individual bean. That’s only one reason coffee is high priced.

The trees have broad, dark green leaves and produce a flower that resembles Jasmine. Some - in Brazil and Mexico, for example, - blossom over a six to eight week period. In countries that lie along the equator such as Kenya and Colombia, though, a tree can have mature berries growing alongside still ripening ones. That’s part of what makes picking such a specialty.

Blossom to harvest may cover a period of up to nine months depending on the weather and other factors and the cycle will be carried out for the life of the tree - about 20-25 years. With the best cultivation technology, a good harvest will be between 6,600 lbs (3,000 kg) and 8,800 lbs (4,000 kg) per hectare. (One hectare is about 2.47 acres.)

From these inaccessible regions, where conditions are harsh, the berries are brought down and processed to make up the world’s second largest commodity (by annual dollar volume).

So, the next time you savor that brew, give a thought to the long journey it traveled to reach your cup. It might make that high price seem less steep.