What are green coffee beans?
Green coffee beans are coffee seeds that have been picked, stripped of their fruit, dried and milled, but not roasted. They are pale green, hard and dense, with none of the smell of roasted coffee. Green coffee is how coffee is traded around the world, and it is what every roaster buys.
How a cherry becomes green coffee
The seed starts inside the coffee cherry. After picking, a farm or mill removes the fruit by one of three main methods: washed, natural or honey. The seed dries in its parchment, or inside the whole dried cherry for a natural, and then a dry mill hulls it, cleans it and sorts it.
Wikipedia's processing article gives the targets: drying stops at no more than 12.5 percent moisture, and the International Trade Centre recommends storing green coffee at 11 percent. Coffee trades moisture with the air around it, so warehouses aim for 60 to 65 percent relative humidity.
Jute bags are the traditional sack, because they let moisture escape and cut the risk of mold. Higher value coffees are moving into high barrier packaging.
Green coffee vs roasted coffee
| Green coffee | Roasted coffee | |
|---|---|---|
| Color and texture | Pale green, hard, dense | Brown to near black, brittle |
| Smell | Little coffee aroma | The full coffee aroma |
| Weight | Heavier | 15 to 18 percent lighter, mostly water lost |
| Chlorogenic acids | About 65 mg per gram in dried arabica | More than 70 percent destroyed in roasting |
| How long it keeps | Months; the trade prizes fresh crop | Roasters print a roast date so you can judge |
| What it is sold as | Raw beans for roasters and home roasters; green coffee extract | Coffee to brew |
From Wikipedia's Green coffee, Coffee roasting and Coffee processing articles.
How long green coffee keeps
Green coffee keeps for months, but not forever. Wikipedia's processing article notes that the specialty trade takes newly arrived green coffee, called fresh crop or new crop, to be at its best. Over the following months its flavors mute and its aromas fade, though some coffees hold their character for 14 to 16 months. Fats and oils make up about 15 percent of a green bean's weight, and air breaks them down.
So a roaster's green coffee has a date on it too: when it arrived, and from which harvest.
Green coffee extract
Green coffee has a second life as a supplement. Wikipedia's green coffee article says green coffee extract has been marketed since the mid 2000s for its chlorogenic acid content. Dried arabica green beans hold about 65 mg of chlorogenic acids per gram and robusta about 140, and roasting destroys more than 70 percent of them. We sell coffee to drink, and we make no health claims for either form.
Green coffee in Montana
No coffee grows in Montana, so every bean a Montana roaster sells came into the state green. What the state's roasters say about buying it, from their own sites on September 27, 2026:
- Ghost Town Coffee Roasters, Bozeman, sells green, unroasted coffee to home roasters and is a certified organic handler.
- Hunter Bay Coffee, Lolo, buys high grade green coffee from small independent farms, with its leaders traveling to origin.
- Florence Coffee Company, Butte, says it buys directly from growing countries and farmers, with a focus on shade grown farms, and that only a small top share of the beans it sees make the cut.
- Red Bird Coffee, Bozeman, says it pays farmers at least fair trade prices and values direct ties with small farmers who cannot afford the yearly cost of certification.
- Montana Coffee Traders, Whitefish, buys high grade arabica from farmers worldwide, including direct to farm.
If you roast at home, Ghost Town's green coffee is a Montana source. If you do not, every roasted bag from a Montana roaster pays for that buying, the roasting, and the jobs in between. Read why local roasters matter.
Green coffee and the club
The club sends roasted coffee only. Each Montana roaster buys its own green coffee and roasts your bag to order. "Roasted and shipped within 3 days." Choose whole bean or ground, roast and style in the plan builder. $16.99 a 12 oz bag. First bag free, you pay $7.99 shipping. Then $16.99 a bag.
Related terms and sources
- Coffee cherry, arabica coffee, peaberry coffee, light roast
- Importer, direct trade, washed process, natural process
Sources: Wikipedia, Green coffee; Wikipedia, Coffee processing; Wikipedia, Coffee roasting; Wikipedia, Coffee bean; Montana roaster facts from each roaster's own site, read September 27, 2026.