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TIME TO PICK COFFEE!

If you have read Picking Specialty Coffee Part 1, you know very well what coffee harvest is about, at least theoretically.

But how does it practically work on a small family farm?

Here we go! A day picking coffee at Juan Pablo's farm in Génova, Nariño, Colombia.

HARVESTING SPECIALTY COFFEE

If the farmer's goal is to harvest the highest possible yield of specialty coffee, harvesting involves also a high level amount of work. In order to rule out later defects in the coffee beans in advance, work must be carried out very precisely and with great care. With a trained eye and sense for the development of the coffee cherries, only the completely ripe cherries are picked from the trees by hand in several stages over a period of weeks.

Once the harvest is complete, and the cherries are hulled and dried, the farmers are left with only about 20% of the total weight of green coffee beans. Of this 20%, only a fraction makes it to the quality level of a specialty coffee.

You already know that we travel to coffee farms to get to know the life and work of the coffee farmer families. A small but important process in coffee farming is packing for export. After sorting, the beans are packed and shipped to roasters, importers and coffee traders all around the globe.

Spontaneously organized, I had the opportunity to pack our own coffee order in Colombia by myself.

Well almost myself, to do it right, John, a neighbor farmer and friend of Juan Pablo's family was so nice to help me.

That's it, and if the sewing machine hadn't broken my yarn several times, I wouldn't know how much manual skill is needed to seal a coffee bag ...

A combination of strength, flavor and perfectly structured milk.

Flat White may not be one of the first espresso creations in the history of coffee, but it is certainly an essential in today's specialty coffee landscape.

Where does it come from, what makes it so special and how is it made right?

Why is coffee sometimes washed and what does the term "natural" on the label of your favorite coffee tell you?

When is a coffee called specialty coffee?

»passion for coffee & fairness to the farmer & what it means for us«

»Don't judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes.«

This old Indian quote is the basis of fair trade for us - because only
if we understand the world of the other, we understand what drives them
and their needs.

But what does that mean at farmersvaluefirst?