Farming and a Brief History of the Coffee Bean:

During a roasting many customers will ask, "where did those green beans come from?" Let’s examine the journey of a bean from the La Minita plantation in Costa Rica.

Coffee beans are the seeds of a berry called a "cherry" for the shape and for the deep crimson color of a fully ripe fruit. The best flavor comes from deep vermilion cherries verging on a mahogany color – the color of dead-ripe Bing cherries.

Once hand picked the cherries travel by truckloads to nearby mills where they undergo a "wet" processing. The fruit is siphoned into a depulper for a skinning stage which is actually a misleading term. The pulp stays; the skin goes. The slimy skinned beans come to rest in a trough, a big stone open-topped fermenting tank. Timing is of the essence as the cherries begin to ferment quickly – a process that is meant only to loosen the pulp of the fruit from the seeds it holds and not to add any flavor. If this fermentation penetrates the beans they will have the taste of rotten fruit or a "sweaty onion" flavor. In the troughs overhead pipes dump the wet beans into separate tubs by size. The water drains out the bottom and the seeds sit for anywhere from 8 to 48 hours or longer while the sugary mucilage begins to ferment and decompose. The removal of the fermented mucilage takes place in a long, elevated channel. In the washing channel the beans are further separated by size. The washed and sorted beans flow into stone draining pools where they remain until they lose their excess water.

Beans in their parchment – a hard, thin jacket that remains once the mucilage is washed away - look something like small pistachio nuts, with a clear tan color that shines in the sun. Now the beans must dry, either in the sun or in a mechanical dryer. Remaining wet will induce a secondary fermentation which will impart undesirable flavors. For a period of 1 – 3 weeks the beans are raked in a checkerboard pattern, going up and down and then across and back. A foreman will determine which beans to send to a big rotating drum dryer where they spin for 2 –3 days at a temperature of 122 – 140 degrees F. The dried beans rest in their protective parchment either in silos or laid on plywood and covered with canvas until they are shipped. During the rest period, which should last a minimum of 20 – 30 days, the cell structure hardens and the beans become more resistant to potential damage from humidity or pressure.

A hulling stage now involves the parchment being peeled of the beans in a machine that works by friction. The preferred beans present a fair amount of silverskin, the light glistening papery chaff that remains beneath the parchment. Under ripe beans can be recognized by looking at this silverskin. On a ripe bean it will adhere in flaky looking pieces whereas on an unripe bean it will be finely webbed, as if the bean had been sandblasted. The stripped beans now pass over vibrating screens that separate them by size.

The last step is an extraordinary venture. Perched on stools in front of wooden work stations, 60 –70 women hand sort the beans, separating out those with adherent silverskins that indicate that they are not ripe, and discarding those that are misshaped or discolored. The approved beans are double sewn into big bags and can be transported to any U.S. city in about a month.