coffee making

8/6/2019 Coffee Making

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The Nicaraguan Coffee Process: From Bean to Mug

Coffee beans are one of the most-farmedproducts in Nicaragua. Sadly, men and womenlabor all day picking and preparing them and getpennies in return. Not all of these photos are mybest work and one of them (the one with me in it)wasn't even taken by me, but from start to finishthey show the story of a coffee bean from tree tomanufacturing plant. Enjoy!

PRESENTED BYH. MOHAMED MEERAN


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Step 1: Pick the coffee beans

For pennies a day,Nicaraguan workers slaveaway in the heat pickingripe coffee beans off of

the coffee trees intocanastas (woodenbaskets) that hangaround their necks.These baskets often

weigh nearly 50 poundsbefore they go and dumpthe picked beans intogiant bolsas (bags).


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Step 2: Packing up and weighing

the bags After a hard day's work,

the bean-pickers bringtheir day's haul to the

owner of thefinca(plantation) to be weighed

in. The photo to the left isa bag full of coffee beansand two of the canastas

used to harvest thebeans.


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Step 3: The red beans vs the

green beans Once the beans are backat the finca, the firstsorting process begins.Often during the picking

process, a worker willpick green coffee beansalong with the red ones.Unfortunately, only thered ones are good tomake into quality coffee,

so workers sometimeshave to sort out thebeans by colors...a longand tedious task.


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Step 4: Shucking the beans

Before becoming theroasted dark product youare used to, coffee beansare in the middle of a

cascara (the skin aroundthe bean) that must beshucked off. Fortunately,farmers have machines todo this for them. Afterdumping pounds of coffee

into the machine, aworker turns a wheel thatgrinds the soft pulp off thebean and separates thetwo parts.


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Step 5: Washing the beans

Once shucked, theexcess cascara must bewashed off of the beans.

While larger coffeemanufacturing plantshave machines to do this,smaller farmers must dothis by hand. This is often

made harder by thescarcity of water in thearea.


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Step 6: Drying the beans

After sorting by color,shucking the cascara offand washing the beans,they are then placed in

these wooden dryingracks and left in the sunfor a few days. Every fewhours the beans must bemoved around to ensure

that the wet ones on thebottom are moved up tobask in the sun's fierceheat.


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Step 7: Sorting the dry beans

Once dry, you still have toescojer(sort) the beans.This entails standing overthe wooden crates of

beans for hours-on-end inthe blazing sun pickingout the black, bright whiteor misshaped beans andtossing them aside. Onlyproperly formed and off-

white colored beans willmake it to the next phase.The rejected ones will beused to make coffee forthe finca owner.


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Step 8: Packing up and selling

the bags Once the beans aresorted and the premiumproduct is seperated fromthe rest, the beans areput back into the giant150 pound sacks andbrought into town to thelocal coffee distributor.

These bags that havetaken around a week toproduce are then sold forroughly $5.


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Step 9: The coffee fields

The coffee's journey is longfrom finished once it leaves thefarmer's hands. Once it is soldto the distributor the coffee istransported to areas further to

the south of Nicaragua wherethere is less rain and harsherheat. The bags are laid out ingiant rows in a field to continuedrying before being processed,roasted and turned into the cup

of joe that gets you goingevery morning


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COFFEE MANUFACTURERS

1. Aromas N Blends Pvt.LtdMumbai,Maharashtra

2. WilsonSurveyors and Adjusters Pvt Ltd.,

Coimbatore,Tamilnadu,India3. Vending Updates India Pv Ltd.,

Delhi,India

4. Insind Food

Chennai,Tamilnadu,India5. Plantrich

Kotayam,Kerala,India

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