"Pure Coffee"

Cafe oro

To me, un-toasted coffee beans taste like sunflower seed husks, to the socios they taste like "pure coffee." Just in case you were wondering....

It has become my habit, along with the workers at the cooperative to chew a few green coffee beans here and there throughout the day.


The last couple of weeks have been a lot of time at the beneficio and talking with folks as they deliver their coffee, or visit the cooperative store to buy household items and a treats. On Wednesday they fired up the processing machines and I got to take photos and video of the dry-process method. I've included some of the videos here (beware of noisiness--machines are loud....).

This is a coffee seedling

I think as time goes by people are becoming more cognizant of what coffee looks like before it gets into their mug (or 40oz thermos, or whathaveyou). But I really enjoyed documenting the process and I look forward to using these shots/videos in my classes. Also, this day was more than just a day with the beneficio workers, it was a day of training and learning about coffee standards and quality for a new generation of coffee farmers (the majority of the young men processing this harvest are the sons and brothers of the leaders in the co-op). So, once again it feeds into my work, which is based on how small producers are staying  on their land. This generation has had different opportunities than their parents, more consistent school, some training in the Spanish language--they wear jeans and have cell phones, they listen to Spanish rock music or music from the U.S. (one kid was even wearing a tag adorned with Justin Bieber's name)--but at the same time, they all are starting to tend their own coffee and corn plots, they want to stay on the land and they want to work with the coffee cooperative.

Behind me is the co-op's nursery for seedlings

Eventually I will have pictures of the whole process--the cooperative has a toaster in town and they toast beans for their cafe in San Cristobal and also for sale around town and beyond (Chiapas, Yucatan, Tabasco). But for now here is a primer on what is happening with the coffee harvest in the highlands.
 
What follows is what I've been able to capture about the process--I have many other stories to tell, but this one seems the most relevant right now--

One of the varieties of coffee grown in the highlands

Coffee picking

Mature coffee on the plant

Red is mature, Green is not

Coffee de-pulping

Coffee drying

Gathering the dried coffee

Dried Coffee - Pergamino

Prepping the costales (69 kilo bags)

Delivered coffee - going to storage

Mountain of pergamino awaiting processing

And here is my chronicling of the processing--some things to keep in mind: Those are 69 kilo bags (that translates to 152 pounds for those of us not fluent in metric); also the beneficio processes cafe pergamino (dried/green coffee beans still with parchment) in lots of 400 bags. 400, 69 kilo bags will become 280, 69 kilo bags of cafe oro (without parchment, ready for export)...that's a lot of parchment weight processed out. The videos are following the coffee beans through the process--they're very short--5-20 seconds each.

I don't have video of the coffee going from pergamino to oro, because this is me up on a ladder against the machinery, so just a couple of pictures of this. There are many places in this stream of coffee beans where the export ready are separated from the non-export grade--for every 5 bags of 'good coffee' there is a bag of 'bad coffee.' The non-export grade coffee will stay in Chiapas and be toasted and sold in Chiapas and surrounding states. They also offer their organic Mexico-grade coffee in the cafe in town. 

This one is for Joe, because I know how much he likes automation

 

This is the parchment dust getting blown out of the the building--a mountain of parchment

Painting the lot number

Topping up to 69 kilos of Oro

Ready for export