The way itself could be its own piece on this forum, since the road was a single unpaved lane that had occasional spots of river wash-over, such a bumpy route had me worried whether or not the minivan could actually make it.
Off into the hills for a half-hour or so, we pulled into a grassy parking lot surrounded by a warehouse looking building and a smaller, more homey unit.
There was a patch of asphalt, and here Moises begins to explain in Spanish (ours got good enough to understand) the process by which medium cherries become hot brown caffeinated water.
First, the two seeds from the cherries are popped out and set to dry on the asphalt and go through a very quick fermentation process. This process is caused by the sun. See them in a white pile in the above picture.
Then the seeds are put into a large tumbler to dry to 12% internal humidity. The warmth is wood fire provided. From there, Moises showed us how the outer shells easily come off. Here's the tumbler...
...and a pile of bags full of ready-to-shuck beans out of the tumbler:
Like the red skins on peanuts, only tougher to remove, the outer skins get removed by a machine.
After that, a lady pours out a pile of shucked beans onto a table and picks through them, tossing the malformed or discolored beans, leaving only high quality beans for roasting. Here are some ready quality beans.
Here's the roasting unit.
We bought some beans roasted the day we visited. One bag for us, one bag for Norm.
No comments:
Post a Comment