The Life of a Coffee Bean, Part 3
Once our coffee cherries ripen, they are handpicked. Each evening from around 4PM to 8 PM (depending on the amount of coffee we’ve harvested that day) the coffee we’ve picked is classified by a series of machines. The machines aren’t too complex—they mostly use water and gravity to separate good beans from bad.
The first machine is a large tank. The coffee cherries fall inside. Leaves and sticks are sorted out through a series of sieves. In the tank’s water, green and red coffee cherries sink, then move to the next stage of the classification process. Some cherries float on the water’s surface (these are called or “boias” or “floaters”). Floating cherries mean that a Coffee Borer bug ate all or half of the coffee bean. Why is this bad? It’s all about roasting—these half-eaten beans will cook quickly and often burn in a roaster, affecting the roasted coffee’s quality and flavor. So any floaters must be sorted out.
Non-floaters move to the next machine, which is called the C-D or cereja descascada. This literally means “skinned cherry.” The C-D does two very important things: 1) removes green cherries and 2) skins the red cherries. Why remove greens? We try hard not to pick green cherries, letting them ripen on the tree instead, but greens inevitably fall in with the red ones. Green cherries are basically under ripe fruits—they don’t have the sweetness or full development of flavors as the red cherries. If greens are mixed with the reds, they will taint the coffee. And why skin the red cherries? Our coffee harvest coincides with our winter rainy season. Drying coffee in a wet, humid environment is a real challenge. We have covered drying patios, but we choose to skin our cherries to help them dry without rotting or fermenting. The C-D machine uses a sieve. Cherries are pressed against the sieve with water pressure. Soft, red cherries are pushed through the sieve and skinned. Green cherries are much harder, so they do not press through and are instead funneled to an exit point.
The skinned red cherries then move the final machine, which we call the “Robo,” because it looks like a little robot. The Robo washes the skinned beans, removing about 50% of their pulp or mucilage. This also helps with the drying process and avoids fermentation.
When the machines are running, it feels very Willy-Wonkaesque. It’s almost like we’re making everlasting gobstoppers. All of this sorting and classification is an effort to make our coffee the best it can be. Here’s a great article called “What is Specialty Coffee.”
After this classification process, the skinned (or, if you prefer, naked) coffee beans are wheeled onto covered drying patios. Here, they will sunbathe until they are dry. But drying is Part 4 of a Coffee Bean’s life, and I’ll save that for next week.
Themocracy
Que interessante! E quanto tempo leva para o processo todo, na máquina? Tem algum cheiro? Vcs usam as que boias e as verdes para alguma coisa?
bjs
Oi Isabella!
Boas perguntas. As maquinas processam 700 Litros de café por hora. Como nosso café é pouco, demora umas 3-4 horas dependendo do dia. A água que usamos para processar fica com um cheiro um pouco fermentado. Tentamos limpar a área e trocar a água todo dia. As boias e verdes são secadas numa estufa separada. Depois, descascamos elas. Esse é o café que nos bebemos na fazenda.