Friday, October 9, 2009

Walking in The Clouds, Part 3 (Final)







As almost every coffee farm in Guatemala, it has its own beneficio, these facilities are often a small buildings with no much aesthetic, they are built to work not to show off. There you can find a big tank where the coffee beans will be poured, then with the help of a lot of water beans will be carried to machines that will take off their skin, then the clean beans will fall in two or three tanks where they will stay for a day or two in fermentation, after the latter process is done the beans will go to the drying patio, where they will sun dried until reach the exact final stage to be stored in yute sacks. Many farms also raise worms into the coffee skin remainders, transforming the pulp in organic fertilizer, here you can see the soil that will be used later to fertilize coffee trees.
After our visit were done we went to a near coffee/spa to take a brunch. This is the kind of work that you don't feel like that, you feel it like fun.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this and great to recycle and reuse and help the soil with the worms, etc.

    Never realized people did this.

    Cheers!

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  2. Thank you CM for the comment, coffee culture in Guatemala has many possitive things, growing coffee trees under shade makes these plantations a really green sanctuaries for birds and other species, although shade makes coffee grow slower and small. Also in every farm the coffee is hand picked, this means no machines, no noise, nor polluting, just more work to employ people.

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