Coffee Trainings

So, having been traveling frequently the last few weeks for various holiday celebrations and visits, I haven’t had much time to write anything coherent to share with you, but on the bright side, I’ve had plenty of time to collect observations and experiences that you might find interesting.

I’ll start with the two huge coffee trainings we had scheduled for the week before Christmas. The main objective of these trainings (of which we’re having three more) was to relay the steps of the coffee processing which we are promoting to the small coffee producers in order for them to sell their coffee at a later stage in the procedure, thus making more money per pound from their coffee beans. So, as I mentioned, the steps that transform the coffee fruit into a mouth watering cappuccino (my preference) are much more complicated than just picking beans and roasting them, something I’ve noticed of many things I absent mindedly consume. While I can’t imagine I could make it worthy of an episode of How Things are Made, I’ll break it down into the steps we’re teaching the attendees:

First, the coffee fruits, which look a little like small, red grapes, are picked once they’ve matured to a point where they are firm and a consistent deep red. All together, they go through a process to weed out any stained or apparently ‘bad’ fruit, which ensures the quality of the beans later in the process – which is crucial to an even, uniform quality in the subsequent steps.

Once sifted through, the fruit must go through a de-pulping machine on the same day it is picked. These machines can be as simple as the one I’ve shown here or as intricate as the industrial sized, motored-powered ones that the large exporters use. The machine we use removes the peel and flesh of the coffee fruit at a rate of 100 pounds of fruit through the machine per 15 minutes, if being cranked manually.

After the peel and pulp are removed from the bean, the naked beans are washed with clean water (preferably not from a river or contaminated water source) and stored in sacks in a cool, dry storage place for up to 48 hours to encourage fermentation. The fermentation, I’m told, cements the indigenous flavor of the bean.

Once thoroughly fermented, the beans are laid out to dry on any readily available, clean, flat surface. This could mean a homemade drying rack or a metal roof, if otherwise unoccupied. Depending on the weather (and this can only be done in the dry season, which is a complication for some) it can take between 8 and 36 hours to fully dry.

Once dry, the beans are stored in a cool, dry place free of other plants with strong odors, such as bananas or onions, in order to preserve its delicate aroma until it is sold to an exporter or sent in for the final steps of the processing.

All this, before it is roasted and ground, the two steps which I imagined comprised the entire process from exotic coffee plant to steaming coffee mug.

At each of the trainings we had about 60 attendees. At the second training, I worked up the nerve to present myself in Kaqchikel, with the little knowledge and few phrases that I’ve acquired thus far. While I didn’t get very far, I did get a round of applause for the effort which has given me a bit of encouragement to continue with lessons – I’ve had about 25 hours of class up till now.

Ch’oyan chik. Until later, that is..