You can’t go wrong with a cup of coffee. It’s the beverage we Brits love the best as recent figures from the British Coffee Association (BSA) reveal that the UK’s coffee consumption has increased from 70 million cups a day 10 years ago, to 95 million cups a day in 2018.
But, the beans voyage on a great adventure before they hit your coffee cup. They travel up and down mountains, through valleys, and over dangerous rope bridges, even before being processed.
The way that coffee beans are processed differs between small fair trade coffee farms and sophisticated plantations. However, it’s not just the ethics, offer of training and education, fair wages, and dedication to treating seasonal workers fairly that often set them apart. From the number of harvesters to the way farmers re-use their waste water – the fair trade coffee bean production process is eco-friendly, in tune with the earth, and makes the most of farming methods that have been used for hundreds of years.
If you’ve research fair trade coffee before, you may be familiar with an organisation named CIPAC. This fair trade coffee co-operative is based in Guatemala and has more than 140 members.
The mountainous landscape makes the perfect spot for growing coffee. Many coffee farmers have inherited their coffee plants from family members, and practise skills passed down throughout the generations.
Before the coffee beans are made into the drink we know and love, there’s a lot that farmers do. So what exactly happens on the journey from bush to mug? Let’s follow some of CIPAC’s fair trade coffee growers to find out…
An insight to harvesting
Between the end of December and the end of February, farmers will begin harvesting their coffee cherries. On family-owned farms, the whole family might get involved.
Within this time frame, coffee can ripen differently depending on the climate at hand. Some farmers even live in areas with their own microclimate, which means the coffee they produce has its own particular and quality flavour!
Cherries can even be harvested from the same plant two or three times. This is because only the ripe cherries are hand-plucked from the bush to guarantee a high quality coffee. On large coffee farms, the harvesters must travel up steep hills and down into valleys to collect the cherries in a basket — which can be exhausting.
An insight to de-pulping
De-pulping begins when coffee cherries need to be delivered to different farms. The cherries need to be de-pulped within 24 hours, and the harvesters often have to travel up and down hills and across rickety bridges to reach the end destination.
Depending on where the cherries are delivered, most CIPAC farmers use their own energy or an electric machine. The coffee beans are closely inspected as they’re poured into the machine, and any beans that don’t look quite ripe enough or are too ripe are taken out.
An insight to washing
Once the cherries have been de-pulped, they must remain in coffee water pools for 24 hours to remove any wet layers. Some beans will float in the water and these beans are always removed.
The left over water must be removed carefully as it could contain toxins. But farmers at CIPAC know what to do – they re-use the dirty water and skins to make an eco-friendly compost to use around their coffee plants!
An insight to drying
Remember that once your beans have been washed, they must dry in the sun naturally. The farmer chooses an area that’s wide, flat, and clean, and spreads the beans out with a rake. They turn the beans with this rake while the sun shines, and then hurry to cover them with a huge sheet if there’s a hint of rain or moisture about. As well as this, they also cover the beans every night, to keep off the dew.
An insight to transportation
When coffee beans have dried, they become parchment beans which farmers deliver to the nearest road for them to be collected by a co-operative. Farmers in the most remote areas must make their way along dangerous winding mountain paths and encounter huge cliff drops. Can you imagine having to walk along a cliff-edge while carrying a 30kg bag of coffee beans?
However, some farmers do not sell to co-operatives and therefore often need to take longer trips to reach a seller. Once the beans reach the co-operative storage site safely, they’re then weighed, checked for quality, and stored.
The green bean transformation
From this, fair trade co-operatives will process parchment beans into green beans. This is the most important quality milestone yet, and involves the beans being judged by their weight and appearance, to make sure they’re of the best quality. Finally, the beans are ‘polished’, which removes the last layer of skin covering the coffee beans.
Before items are sold, they must be tested. ‘Coffee cupping’ involves a buyer slurping coffee in an attempt to accurately taste all the subtle flavours of the coffee, especially for the special varieties grown in areas with their own microclimates. These samples are sent to the co-operative, so they can easily vouch for the quality of the coffee to buyers!
When working with CIPAC, coffee beans are sold to a fair trade operator called Cafesca. From there, some of the beans are sent to another Mexican fair trade operator, Descamex, who are the only facility in the world to use the Mountain Water Method to produce decaf coffee. Descamex send the decaffeinated beans back to Cafesca, who transform all the coffee beans into instant coffee and instant decaf.
We bet you didn’t know all of that. Coffee beans go on quite the adventure before making it into your mug. And while the huge coffee plantations use lots of workers and modern equipment, the fair trade farmers at CIPAC like to keep it simple. Family-run farms. Hand-picking only the ripest cherries. Drying the beans naturally under the heat of the sun. Fewer chemicals, and far more character.
