COFFEE GROWING
The art of coffee production involves many important techniques and processes in order to achieve a quality product. Here we present the stages of this art, from plantation to industrialization.
From Production to Industrialization
Seedlings
Plantation
Plant husbandry
Blossoming and Maturation
Harvest
Processing and Drying
Storage
Milling
Grading
Industrialization
From Production to Industrialization
From production to consumption the coffee passes through a long cycle that can be summarized in the following fashion: The seeds are planted in nurseries in order to obtain young trees in a period that lasts from 6 months to 1 year. These are planted in the field. After receiving the necessary cultural practices, the coffee trees grow and, after about 2.5 years, start to produce. The plants blossom, bear fruit and, when the cherries are mature or dry, they are harvested by hand, by strip-picking, screened, and left to dry, under the sun in drying patios or in mechanical dryers. Then, the coffee is stored and hulled, eliminating the mucilage that covers the cherry.
After this preparation, the coffee is ready for export. Later it is industrialized, when the coffee is roasted and ground or solubilized. Then it is ready for consumption.
Seedlings
The coffee plantation begins with the formation of young trees. These are formed in nurseries that are covered with bamboo, wood or grass. This creates a semi-shade environment that protects the trees from the sun.
One or two seeds are planted in a plastic bag filled with a mixture of sand, manure and fertilizers. Forty to sixty days later, young trees emerge that are nicknamed palito de fostoro [matchstick]. After that, the two first leaves open, which is known as the orelha de onça [tiger's ear] phase.
With correct treatment (irrigation, spraying and application of fertilizers), the plant grows to a height of 20cm when it has 04 or 06 pairs of leaves, at which point the tree is ready to be planted in the field.
Plantation
Before planting, the land must be properly prepared. If the area is covered by vegetation, it needs to be prepared by clearing the vegetation and uprooting trees. Then, the land must be tilled and graded so as to leave the soil clean and fluffy. After that, comes the preparation of the holes, in accordance with the most adequate spacing, which varies from 3 to 4 meters between rows and from 1 to 2 meters between holes.
Planting begins in the rainy season. The plastic wrap is removed from the young trees and they are placed in the holes.
Plant Husbandry
After planting, the coffee tree needs to receive correct treatment to grow fast and to assure good harvests in the future. The main cultural practices in coffee-growing are: weeding, to eliminate harmful weeds; fertilization, to supply necessary nutrients to the plant; soil conservation; and spraying, to defend the coffee trees from pests and diseases that harm them. Cultural practices are carried out during "the rainy season", corresponding to the period from September-October to March-April, when the plants develop, blossom and bear fruit, needing therefore to be free from competition for water, nutrients, light, also from pests and diseases, in addition to requiring adequate nourishment.
Blossoming and Maturation
From September to November, when the rains arrive, the plants start to blossom. The flowers are white and perfumed, with 5 petals. Coffee belongs to the rubiaceae family. The two most cultivated species in the world are coffee Arabica (Arabica coffee) and coffee canephora (Robusta coffee).
Harvest
The coffee harvest occurs when the majority of the cherries are ripe or dry. this occurs from April to August. The most usual method of harvesting, strip-picking, comprises several operations:
- banking up the soil : cleaning of the area where the coffee will fall;
- sweeping : collection of beans that have fallen from natural causes, beforestrip-picking;
- strip-picking : stripping the cherries from trees by manual means;
- creening : use of sieves to remove light impurities;
- raking back the soil : the reverse operation of baking up the soil, when the "crowns" (tops of the trees) are undone after the harvest.
Other methods of manual picking are: collecting the stripped beans on cloths or in baskets, which have the advantage of reducing the impurities in the coffee.
Processing and Drying
After harvesting, the coffee is transported for processing, The beans are constantly turned over, to expose them to the sun, and the full drying occurs in 15-20 days. When the coffee reaches a humidity of around 12%, it can be collected and be stored in silos, which are custom-built constructions, of wood or masonry.
Processed of the green coffee
Storage
The storage of the coffee in "coco" [dried cherry] is made in tulhas [silos] on the farms.
The hulled coffee is packed and stored in masonry warehouses, which are customized for conservation of the product. The bags are placed in stacks, with height of 4.50m or 22 bags. The stacks form blocks that are divided by corridors.
Pest control with insecticides is periodically conducted in order to eliminate the pests that occur during storage
Milling
Milling is the set of operations that eliminates all the impurities from the coffee in dried cherry form, separates the beans in different sizes, and later packs it in 60.5kg jute bags.
The coffee husk is removed by a revolving cylinder that squeezes the beans, peeling them. The elimination of impurities and the sorting of beans by size are executed by screening, ventilation, pneumatic air separators and magnetic separators.
For coffee with better commercial features, the product is again milled in order to standardize the type, aspect, and bean size. This is accomplished by manual, mechanical or electronic sorting, according to the size, form, specific weight and color of the bean.
Grading
Coffee can be graded according to type and cup quality. Grading by type encompasses 7 types of decreasing value, from 2 to 8, in function of the defects present in a sample of 300 grams.
The defects can be of an intrinsic type, constituted of beans modified by agricultural and industrial processing, by genetic or physiological modifications, and extrinsic ones, which are constituted by elements that are foreign to the hulled coffee.
Type 4 is known as the "basis type", since it corresponds to the great majority of coffees that are used in the export trade, Sorting by type takes into account other features, such as: size and shape of the bean, appearance, color and the level of humidity. Grading by cup quality is the most important factor in the determination of product quality. Specialized coffee tasters (liquorers) determine quality through cup tests that evaluate the beans by taste, smell and touch.
Another factor affecting cup quality is the presence of foreign tastes. Coffee has a great capacity to absorb smells from other products (perfumes, insecticides, fuels etc.) that may be in close proximity.
Industrialization
Coffee is industrialized in two main ways: roasting and grinding, and solubilization.
The hulled coffee is roasted at a temperature between 230-250º, after which it is ground and becomes ready to be prepared as an infusion and to be drunk.
