Countless people rely on their morning coffee to help them wake up and face the day. You can easily get this beverage by setting up a coffee maker or stopping by a café, so it's easy to forget how much work goes into producing the drink.

Coffee beans are actually the seeds of cherries that grow on a coffee plant. They need to be harvested, dried, roasted, and ground up before they can be brewed.

Since coffee grows in tropical environments, it is not something you can simply add to your vegetable garden. In fact, Hawaii is the only state where conditions allow coffee to be produced commercially. While New England summers can be lovely, the winters will wipe out any coffee that stays outside.

However, it is possible to keep a coffee plant in your home year-round. In addition to its beauty and value as a conversation piece, the plant will eventually let you start harvesting coffee beans. You'll just have to be prepared for a long wait between when you start growing the plant and when it will produce its first cup of joe.

Getting started

You can choose to grow your coffee plant from seed or from a seedling. Sweet Maria's a home coffee roasting supplier based in West Oakland, California, says you should soak seeds in water for 12 to 24 hours to encourage the growth of an embryo.

Growing from seed can be quite difficult, though. Many seeds will either fail to germinate or rot before sprouting. Gurney's Seed and Nursery Co., a mail order seed company based in Greendale, Indiana, says it may take up to eight years to grow a coffee plant from seed.

Starting a coffee plant from a seedling is easier, but you'll still have to be patient. This process requires you to maintain the plant for three to four years before you start seeing cherries.

Use a deep pot for the seedling. This depth will allow room for a taproot to grow. As the coffee plant gets bigger, you'll need to transplant it to a larger pot.

Care

Coffee grows in warm, wet environments. The best way to keep the plant healthy is to replicate these conditions as closely as possible.

Coffee is often grown in the shade, so it should have a source of indirect light. The plant should be kept in a room with windows that gets at least four or five hours of sunlight a day. Blue Bottle Coffee, a roaster based in Oakland, Calif., recommends keeping the plant a few feet away from the window to prevent scorching.

If you don't get enough sunlight in your home, artificial light will work as well. Setting up a fluorescent or full-spectrum bulb on a timer will satisfy the coffee plant's light needs.

The ideal growing temperature is 60 to 80 degrees. You can bring the plant outside when the days get warm enough, but you should carefully monitor the weather conditions. If the temperature is forecast to drop below 45 degrees, move it to a warmer location.

Coffee needs an ample supply of water, so you should water it once a day to keep the soil moist. If the leaves appear to be drooping or turning brown, the plant needs more water. Be careful not to overwater the plant.

Rich soil is ideal, since it will provide the nutrients needed to keep your coffee plant healthy.  Gurney's Seed and Nursery Co. recommends adding a liquid fertilizer every two weeks between March and October and once a month between November and February. The Blair Estate Organic Coffee Farm, based in Kauai, Hawaii, recommends adding high nitrogen fertilizer in February and April to stimulate spring growth; high potash fertilizer in March, May, July, and October to promote cherry growth; and a balanced fertilizer in June and August.

Small white flowers will appear when the plant has grown large enough. They will only last a few days, but they produce a pleasant, sweet smell during their bloom.

Give the plant room to grow. You can prune or pinch back the plant if it is starting to reach the ceiling.

Harvesting

Once cherries start to appear on the coffee plant, you'll need to wait for them to ripen. This process can take several months, and cherries will ripen at different rates. Once a cherry has turned a bright red, it is ready for harvesting.

If you'd like to start a few new coffee plants, you can do so by planting the seeds from a cherry. Blue Bottle Coffee says you can simply take off the fruit and plant a seed in a potting soil mix that is good for new plants. Each cherry generally has two coffee beans, although some will only have a single bean known as a Peaberry.

In commercial operations, workers have to remove the fruit from a large number of cherries. The National Coffee Association, an American coffee trade association, says the "wet method" of cherry processing uses machinery to pulp the fruit.

Since you will not be handling such a large number of cherries, you can simply remove the beans by hand. The cherry fruit is edible, with a taste that is a mixture of sweet and tart.

Once the beans have been removed from the cherry, put them in a vat of warm water to allow natural processes to remove their layer of mucilage. The Blair Estate Organic Coffee Farm says you should discard any beans that float, since their density is not good enough to produce a good beverage. Let the beans soak overnight, then wash them off.

Although beans can be dried mechanically, you'll get the best results by drying them in the sun. Rake the beans periodically to allow them to dry evenly, and move them to a protected area if rain is in the forecast. In areas of constant direct sunlight, the beans may be dry enough in only a few days; during cloudy conditions, it can take a couple of weeks.

When storing the coffee beans, keep them in a dry area and leave the crispy parchment layer on. This layer should be removed before you roast the beans. You may be able to complete this process by using a blender with dull blades and a pulse setting.

The National Coffee Association says coffee roasting is done in machines that maintain a temperature of 550 degrees and keep the beans moving to prevent them from burning. Investing in a small home roaster will let you prepare small amounts of beans as they are harvested.

Finally, you can grind the roasted beans to the desired coarseness. Now you're all set to brew a cup of coffee with beans you grew at home.

It's an intensive process, and it likely won't cover your regular coffee intake. A typical tree produces about 4,000 beans a year, enough to make a standard one-pound bag of coffee. But a coffee plant will provide a good alternative to everyday houseplants while giving you an interesting project to work on.