For the first time in years both Christmas Eve and Christmas are in the weekend. Previous years not only did this holiday fall in the middle of the week, also it seemed like the farmers thought it would be a nice Christmas present to deliver coffee on those days so I would always be home late.This year, for a change, we can celebrate this holiday as a family, and we'd like to wish you...
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I've just returned from a visit to our E&D Farm in Xishuangbanna and like everywhere else in the region, coffee harvest and processing are in full swing. But it's not just us humans that know what to do these days. During our walk in the plantation, we saw a lot of flowers in bloom, keeping birds, bees and the likes busy.
Now the harvest is in full swing in Yunnan, I figured it was time to pick up on a series of posts I had in mind for quite some time. About a year ago, I posted an article on harvesting methods used in this region. Within 8 hours after harvesting, the fresh cherries should be processed as otherwise unwanted fermentation can take place, which will adversely affect the coffee quality. There are three major methods for processing coffee: dry, semi-dry and wet, the latter being the method used in Yunnan. The objective of processing is to remove all the covering surrounding the beans, to lower the water contents of the fresh cherries to a level that allows preservation of the beans and to prepare the beans according to the market requirements. Source: www.dupuystorage.com/ A coffee cherry consists of an external skin (exocarp), which turns red or yellow when the cherry is ripe; the pulp and mucilage (mesocarp); and the bean (endosperm). Usually there are two coffee beans in each cherry and each bean is surrounded by parchment and a silverskin. Each layer covering the coffee beans is removed in one of the steps of the processing. In short, the external skin and pulp are removed during pulping, the mucilage during fermentation (or mechanical treatment), and the parchment and silverskin (after drying) during hulling and polishing. Add some grading of coffee beans by size and sorting of defects, and you end up with the green beans which serve as the raw material for your cup(s) of daily happiness. Our field visits often bring us to little visited places, and sometimes we come across some well-hidden secret beauties. Like last month. We were asked by a village in HongHe Prefecture to perform a prospection. At the moment, the villagers only grow sugar cane and rice and they are interested in introducing coffee as a new cash crop. Apparently there had already been an attempt to grow coffee in the past, as we discovered two coffee trees in the village. Lack of knowledge probably lead to it not succeeding and we will now assist the villagers with training and technical assistance. The coffee trees, however, were not our biggest surprise. That was the beautiful, ancient courtyard in the village. The traditional housing was still inhabited, though, as the township is rather remote and the road to get there is very bad, there are no tourists.
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AuthorI wouldn't be surprised to find out I was born with a passion for coffee. For the life of me, I can't remember not loving coffee. And by that, I don't just mean drinking it, but everything involved from its cultivation over the processing to the final product that is my loyal companion throughout the day. Archives
February 2014
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