Coffee Bean

Coffee Bean

Type	Seed
Season	Spring; Summer
Growth Time	10 days
Sell Price	15g

The Coffee Bean is the one planting item that is also its own harvest, which makes a single bean the only one a farm ever has to find. Put it in spring or summer soil, wait, and the plant hands back four beans every other day for the rest of both seasons, each of which can go straight back into the ground. Five beans in a Keg come out as Coffee worth ten times the beans that went in, so the plant is really a Keg feeder rather than a crop to ship. The catch is the arithmetic: four beans a harvest is one short of a Keg load, so a single plant can never fill one on its own. Finding the first bean is the hard part, because the usual supplier is a Dust Sprite deep in the Mines and it almost never parts with one.

Growing

Ten days of growth turn a planted bean into a coffee plant, and from then on the plant keeps going and is picked every other day. Each picking gives four beans, occasionally a few more, and the plant stays in place until the season runs out.

Spring and summer both suit it, and the two run together. A plant of any size standing in the ground on the twenty-eighth of Spring carries straight on into Summer as though nothing had happened, and whatever fertiliser is under it stays put as well. That makes a Spring sowing the better one, because it buys nearly eight weeks of picking from one planting instead of four. A bean put in during Summer has to finish by the end of the season, so the middle of the third week of Summer is the last sowing that returns anything at all.

Fertiliser is the trap. Basic Fertilizer and Quality Fertilizer only raise the grade of the first bean out of each picking, which quietly splits the harvest into two different stacks. That matters because a Keg will only take five beans of one grade at a time, and mismatched stars cannot be loaded together. A coffee bed is better left unfertilised, so every bean comes out the same and the stacks stay loadable.

The regrowth cycle also sets the size of the bed. Two plants picked on the same day give eight beans, which is one Keg load with three beans over; three plants give twelve, which is two loads with two over. Anything less than two plants leaves the Keg idle.

Under Greenhouse glass, or in a pot indoors, the plant produces all year and keeps a cellar of Kegs supplied through Winter.

Buying

No shop in Pelican Town sells Coffee Beans, which leaves two routes and a lot of patience.

Dust Sprites are the main one. They haunt the frozen stretch of the Mines between the fortieth and seventy-ninth floors, usually in bunches, and each one has about a one in a hundred chance of leaving a bean behind. Clearing those floors with a decent weapon is therefore the standard way a farm gets started on coffee, and the odds mean the first bean can take several trips.

The Traveling Cart is the other. Coffee Beans turn up rarely among her ordinary Friday and Sunday goods in Cindersap Forest at a price that swings wildly, and they appear far more often in her special stock during Fall and Winter at a figure that would buy a whole fruit tree. That special listing is a poor deal in gold terms and an excellent one in time terms, because a single purchase removes the need for any more Dust Sprite hunting at all.

Both routes only need to work once. From the first bean onwards the plant is its own supply, and holding back five beans from each picking to replant doubles the bed every cycle until the field is full. That is the real reason the steep cart price is worth paying on a farm that has gold but no mine levels.

Uses

The Keg is the whole point. Five beans of matching grade go in and Coffee comes out after two hours, which is quick enough that one Keg can be turned over several times in a day if the beans are standing ready. Coffee sells for far more than the beans it was made from, so brewing beats shipping for every grade except the very best, where five top beans are worth as much as the drink they make.

Coffee itself does more than sell. A cup gives a speed boost for a short stretch, which is what makes it a mining and Skull Cavern staple, and three cups cooked together make Triple Shot Espresso with a much longer boost. The recipe for that comes from the Stardrop Saloon.

A Fish Pond holding a Blobfish asks for five Coffee Beans to raise its capacity, which is a small but real reason to keep a stack rather than brewing every bean.

Because the game treats the bean as a seed rather than a vegetable, the Tiller profession adds nothing to its price and a Preserves Jar refuses it outright. Shipping raw beans is therefore the weakest thing to do with them.

Offering the bean as a present is a wasted turn. Everyone in the valley who reacts to a Coffee Bean dislikes it.

Notes

Plant the first bean in Spring rather than Summer. The plant carries over the season break with its fertiliser intact, which nearly doubles the number of pickings from one sowing.

Keep the bed unfertilised. Mixed grades cannot be loaded into a Keg together, and the cheap fertilisers guarantee mixed grades.

Grow at least two plants before counting on Coffee. Four beans a picking leaves a Keg one bean short, so a lone plant brews nothing.

All Seeds

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Grows	Season	Pierre
Acorn	Oak Tree	All	-
Amaranth Seeds	Amaranth	Fall	70g
Ancient Seeds	Ancient Fruit	Spring; Summer; Fall	-
Apple Sapling	Apple	Fall	4,000g
Apricot Sapling	Apricot	Spring	2,000g
Artichoke Seeds	Artichoke	Fall	30g (Year 2+)
Banana Sapling	Banana	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Bean Starter	Green Bean	Spring	60g
Beet Seeds	Beet	Fall	-
Blue Grass Starter	Blue Grass	Spring; Summer; Fall	-
Blueberry Seeds	Blueberry	Summer	80g
Bok Choy Seeds	Bok Choy	Fall	50g
Broccoli Seeds	Broccoli	Fall	-
Cactus Seeds	Cactus Fruit	All	-
Carrot Seeds	Carrot	Spring	-
Cauliflower Seeds	Cauliflower	Spring	80g
Cherry Sapling	Cherry	Spring	3,400g
Coffee Bean	-	Spring; Summer	-
Corn Seeds	Corn	Summer; Fall	150g
Cranberry Seeds	Cranberries	Fall	240g
Eggplant Seeds	Eggplant	Fall	20g
Fairy Seeds	Fairy Rose	Fall	200g
Fall Seeds	Blackberry, Common Mushroom, Hazelnut, or Wild Plum	Fall	-
Fiber Seeds	Fiber	All	-
Garlic Seeds	Garlic	Spring	40g (Year 2+)
Grape Starter	Grape	Fall	60g
Grass Starter	Grass	Spring; Summer; Fall	100g
Hops Starter	Hops	Summer	60g
Jazz Seeds	Blue Jazz	Spring	30g
Kale Seeds	Kale	Spring	70g
Mahogany Seed	Mahogany Tree	All	-
Mango Sapling	Mango	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Maple Seed	Maple Tree	All	-
Melon Seeds	Melon	Summer	80g
Mixed Flower Seeds	Varies	Spring Summer Fall	-
Mixed Seeds	Varies	Spring Summer Fall	-
Mossy Seed	Green Rain Tree	All	-
Mushroom Tree Seed	Mushroom Tree	All	-
Mystic Tree Seed	Mystic Tree	All	-
Orange Sapling	Orange	Summer	4,000g
Parsnip Seeds	Parsnip	Spring	20g
Peach Sapling	Peach	Summer	6,000g
Pepper Seeds	Hot Pepper	Summer	40g
Pine Cone	Pine Tree	All	-
Pineapple Seeds	Pineapple	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Pomegranate Sapling	Pomegranate	Fall	6,000g
Poppy Seeds	Poppy	Summer	100g
Potato Seeds	Potato	Spring	50g
Powdermelon Seeds	Powdermelon	Winter	-
Pumpkin Seeds	Pumpkin	Fall	100g
Qi Bean	Qi Fruit	All	-
Radish Seeds	Radish	Summer	40g
Rare Seed	Sweet Gem Berry	Fall	-
Red Cabbage Seeds	Red Cabbage	Summer	100g (Year 2+)
Rhubarb Seeds	Rhubarb	Spring	-
Rice Shoot	Unmilled Rice	Spring	40g
Spangle Seeds	Summer Spangle	Summer	50g
Spring Seeds	Wild Horseradish, Daffodil,; Leek, or Dandelion	Spring	-
Starfruit Seeds	Starfruit	Summer	-
Strawberry Seeds	Strawberry	Spring	-
Summer Seeds	Grape, Spice Berry,; or Sweet Pea	Summer	-
Summer Squash Seeds	Summer Squash	Summer	-
Sunflower Seeds	Sunflower	Summer; Fall	200g
Taro Tuber	Taro Root	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Tea Sapling	Tea Leaves	All	-
Tomato Seeds	Tomato	Summer	50g
Tulip Bulb	Tulip	Spring	20g
Wheat Seeds	Wheat	Summer; Fall	10g
Winter Seeds	Crocus, Crystal Fruit,; Snow Yam, or Winter Root	Winter	-
Yam Seeds	Yam	Fall	60g