I participated in the cycle of coffee today. This gives me some insight into how much goes in to a cup of coffee and will make me savor every cup from now until I die.
A coffee plant is like a waist-high to chest-high bush with clumps of berries on it. When the berry turns red it can be harvested. Inside this red fruit is a bean (seed, really) that’s kind of green and slimy. The beans get washed and dried a little bit and dumped into big bins (trash bins in this case). Eventually, they get tossed into a roaster, at which point they need to be consumed within a week.
All of this is a little confusing to me and the tour went too fast, but that’s what I gathered. Here are a few other notes.
This guy at O’o Farm harvests this stuff by hand. Basically, when he sees red fruit, he pulls it off. I ate the red fruit and it’s not that bad. I think he uses it for something, but I can’t remember.
Notice I have three green seeds in my palm in the picture. Gail gave me her seed, hers had a single seed and mine had two, which means something. However, I can’t recall what that is. I need to research that.
The seeds/beans can sit in those trash cans for a while. I think that’s where the manufacturing lag happens, between harvesting and roasting, so it can go from the grower to the roaster without loss of quality.
He likes to brew it in a French Press. That’s how we had it and it was good. Really good. He’s been experimenting with a Chemex.
Here is the on-site coffee shop they have at O’o Farm:
How cool is that? Wow!