Coffee Production Process
Harvest
The harvest is made by the inhabitants of the region for the simple reason that we want to enhance employment on a local level to benefit the community, so that we can help improve their life quality as well. The coffee beans are collected exclusively in a manual way, the ripen fruits of coffee, locally called „cherries“are then separated from the green beans that have been harvested by mistake. In this way we can control the absolute quality of our product. This process corresponds to a primary selection of the coffee.
Weighing
After each workday the coffee is carried to the collection center where the exact quantity of coffee collected by each person is weighted on an electronic wage. In this way it is possible to know the right amount that is daily collected by each person. The coffee submitted by each person is checked after being weighted.
Pulping
The coffee cherry is introduced into a chute with water which is essential for the second selection phase: The empty coffee cherries lay on the water surface and it is possible to separate them from the rest and have as a result a further selected amount of coffee. From the chute the coffee is introduced into the pulping machine through a worm gear, in order to separate the grain from the pulp. The process is entirely carried out mechanically without resorting to any chemicals.
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Mucilage removal
The coffee almond comes out of the pulping machine with a jelly substance called mucilage, which is separated from the almond by means of a mucilage removal device in which this substance is eliminated with mechanical friction and water. The mucilage is deposited with the pulp in special roofed tanks, for decomposition and later use as manure. This process reduces the contamination of hydric sources. Once the process is finished, the coffee almond goes on to the drying chambers.
Drying chamber
The grains are transported to a silo where they are dried using cisco of the coffee as fuel (cisco is the skin of the dried coffee). The drying temperature is always less than 45 ºC in order to preserve the quality of the grain. This process helps the preservation of coffee and the achievement of a coffee of excellent quality. The coffee remains in the silo for about 15 hours in order to obtain a humidity rate between 10 and 12 %.
Packing
After the drying process the so-called “pergamine coffee” is selected and packed in fique bags ready for transportation.