Harvest Time
We are knee-deep in coffee cherry here at Lions Gate. All over Kona, farmers are borderline maniacal, working long days and trying to get the crop out of the field and into the mills. Coffee season, running from August through December, will add gray to the hair, take inches off the waistline, and generally wreak havoc on the social life. Not to mention, stain hands black with tannin.
Hawaii, such a relaxing beautiful place. Unless you are a farmgirl. Then the relaxation goes out the window. I know, you all have such pity on me. After all, I work for myself, and work in shorts and flip-flops no less. And I do live in paradise. But let's talk a little bit about the harvest process before you decide you want to move over here and take my job.
Our coffee is picked by hand, as is all Kona coffee. On a good day, my pickers (Gabriel, Angelica, Ephraim, Maria, and Rafael) bring in about 1300 pounds of coffee cherry. It must be processed within 24 hours or the cherry ferments and ruins the coffee. So I run it through a pulper, which separates the seeds (what we know as coffee beans) from the fruit. The fruit gets mulched back into the field, and the beans go into a water-filled fermentation tank. My pulper moves about 350 pounds an hour. With cleanup, it's a good night if the work is done before 10pm.
Twelve hours in the tank strips all the remaining fruity mucilage from the beans. The next morning, I move the beans out into the sun on traditional-style "hoshidana" drying rack. it has a rolling roof to cover the beans at night. Here, the beans are raked every hour until dry to the touch. Then we keep raking them twice a day until the moisture level drops to around 12%. It takes about two weeks in the sun. Some farms use hot-air dryers, which can change the taste of coffee.
Once at 12%, we pull the beans off, and store them in burlap bags in a climate-controlled room. This is the parchment (or pergamino) stage. Parchment coffee has a crunchy hull over the bean, much like a peanut shell. The bean must be stored for at least two months as parchment. This allows the pores in the bean to close up and the flavor to mature. Roast a bean before the two months are up and welcome to blahsville, with a grassy aftertaste. uck. Worth waiting two months for the good stuff.
It is impossible to make a bad coffee, good (well, maybe with lots of sugar and flavorings. maybe). But there are a million ways to make a good coffee bad. Each step in the process is vital to the end result.
And thus, the 15-hour workdays during coffee season. Making good coffee, one bean at a time. Still want my job? You can't have it. I love it!!
Hawaii, such a relaxing beautiful place. Unless you are a farmgirl. Then the relaxation goes out the window. I know, you all have such pity on me. After all, I work for myself, and work in shorts and flip-flops no less. And I do live in paradise. But let's talk a little bit about the harvest process before you decide you want to move over here and take my job.
Our coffee is picked by hand, as is all Kona coffee. On a good day, my pickers (Gabriel, Angelica, Ephraim, Maria, and Rafael) bring in about 1300 pounds of coffee cherry. It must be processed within 24 hours or the cherry ferments and ruins the coffee. So I run it through a pulper, which separates the seeds (what we know as coffee beans) from the fruit. The fruit gets mulched back into the field, and the beans go into a water-filled fermentation tank. My pulper moves about 350 pounds an hour. With cleanup, it's a good night if the work is done before 10pm.
Twelve hours in the tank strips all the remaining fruity mucilage from the beans. The next morning, I move the beans out into the sun on traditional-style "hoshidana" drying rack. it has a rolling roof to cover the beans at night. Here, the beans are raked every hour until dry to the touch. Then we keep raking them twice a day until the moisture level drops to around 12%. It takes about two weeks in the sun. Some farms use hot-air dryers, which can change the taste of coffee.
Once at 12%, we pull the beans off, and store them in burlap bags in a climate-controlled room. This is the parchment (or pergamino) stage. Parchment coffee has a crunchy hull over the bean, much like a peanut shell. The bean must be stored for at least two months as parchment. This allows the pores in the bean to close up and the flavor to mature. Roast a bean before the two months are up and welcome to blahsville, with a grassy aftertaste. uck. Worth waiting two months for the good stuff.
It is impossible to make a bad coffee, good (well, maybe with lots of sugar and flavorings. maybe). But there are a million ways to make a good coffee bad. Each step in the process is vital to the end result.
And thus, the 15-hour workdays during coffee season. Making good coffee, one bean at a time. Still want my job? You can't have it. I love it!!
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