“The coffee plants blossom in September,” said the steward, as they walked through the field. “The blossoms are something like orange blossoms, which your ladies love to use at weddings. Then comes the berry, which is something like a red cherry and is picked in April and May. The picking is a great time and men, women and children take part, each with a basket on his or her back. A good picker can pick berries enough in one day to make forty to fifty pounds of coffee.”
Going into one of the storehouses, the steward brought out some of the half-dried berries and broke them open. Inside rested the seed, two coffee beans with the flat sides together and covered with a sticky pulp.
“Don’t look much like the beans we get,” said Frank.
“These beans have to be dried and the pulp must be taken off,” said the professor.
“How do they get the pulp off?” asked Mark.
“The berry is first crushed and then the mass is put through a machine which separates the pulp from the seeds. Then the seeds, or beans, are washed twice and dried, and come out as white as anyone would wish.”
“But our coffee isn’t white,” said Frank. “It’s green—that is, before it is roasted.”
“The whiteness is all on the skin of the bean, which must be taken off before the coffee is ready for market. Did you notice that large stone flooring on the other side of this field? That is the drying floor.” The professor turned to the steward. “How long do you dry your coffee here?”
“From six weeks to two months,” answered Juan Greva. “The weather makes the time short or long. Each day the coffee is spread out with rakes and at night it is gathered in heaps and covered with heavy cloth.”
“What a lot of work for a cup of coffee!” murmured Mark.