A second cup of coffee

This is what a pile of dried green coffee looks like

When we last visited the coffee plantations, workers were dumping full baskets into large bins, once this bin is full, coffee begins its second phase of becoming your morning motivation. Processing.

With the "beans" neatly tucked inside the pulp of a cherry-like fruit. They use a process known as pulping (makes sense right?). This is either done by hand by squeezing the fruit at one end to eject the seed out the opposite end. Or, this can also be done by a pulping machine. Just as picking, it's a very labor-intensive process.

The place we visited used a dry method of processing. There's an excellent video of wet processing which can be found here. After the seed has been removed from the cherry-like fruit, the seed still has a layer of mucilage (goo) and a paper seed coat (known as the hull). This layer protects the seed, and must be removed before roasting. The dry method simply involves spreading the seeds out in the sun (see below).

Coffee seeds being dried on a platform in the sunshine

After about a day of drying, the paper-like seed coat is brittle with the goo being dried. Just as sundried taste different than fresh tomatoes, this sun-drying creates chemical changes which gives coffee a unique taste. In many regions, the coffee is graded using a process known as elutriation. This process simply separates high quality seed from low quality seed. The high quality seed sinks, and the lower quality (along with all the other garbage), known in the industry as "floater coffee" is sieved off and sold.  Interesting fact, the #1 and #2 buyer of floater coffee in the world is Folgers and Nescafe respectively. I guess the old adage, "you get what you pay for" holds true. At this point, the hull is removed in a dryer, and the seed is bagged. The next step in the journey of coffee is the US, Europe, or Asia.