Coffee Tour

Baby Coffee Plants

On Fridays, we have a tradition of going on field trips. This week we went to the Doka Estate Coffee Tour.

First, the guide showed us how the coffee grows. First a worker plants the seed in a small pot and it stays there for 6 months. After that time, the small plant is transplanted with another plant into a plastic bag where it grows for two years. At that point, it’s ready for the field for the next thirty years. When the 30 years is up, they use the tree for compost.

Second, the guide took us to a small field where he gave us a coffee cherry each. They tasted both sweet and bitter at the same time. He explained that sometimes there is a cherry that is called a peaberry. A peaberry is a round cherry that has only one bean in it instead of two. Some people think that this kind of coffee bean is sweeter, but the guide said that it just depends on what you like. Someone in our group got a peaberry and she really liked it.

Then we walked to a big building where they processed the beans. First, we saw a giant hole about 20 feet deep. The guide said that this is what they use to separate the good beans from the not so good beans. First, they fill the hole with water. (It is cemented over so the water doesn’t get out.) Next, the workers drop 20, 26 lb buckets of beans into the water-filled hole. The bad beans float out a hole at the top and the good beans sink. Then the good beans get sucked up a tube and get taken away to a machine that takes the skin off.

The machine that takes the skin off the cherry

After that, we went to a large room. There was a big machine in it that takes skin off of the cherry. The bigger the beans are, the higher quality they are. The big beans go through one machine, the medium beans through another, and the smallest beans through the last. To actually get the outside pulp off of the bean, it has to sit in water for 2 days.

Then the guide showed us a big bean-drying machine. The lower quality beans go through the dryer. It takes about a day in this thing to get to the golden humidity ratio, 11%.

150 pound bags of coffee ready to roast

Then we walked to a room where lots of 150 lb burlap bags of coffee were stacked to the ceiling. We felt the beans in open bags, and they were very light.

Next, the guide took us outside to what looked like a huge parking lot. He said that this is where they dry the good beans. They have to rake the beans every 45 minutes, and leave them out for 3 days.

Then the guide took us to a room where he showed us all the different roasts that they roast. The group continued, but we stayed. There was a big poster explaining the history of coffee. It said that the Catholics baptized it so they felt it was safe to drink it. Also, a French Naval officer brought a clipping of it to the Caribbean, and that’s how coffee came to Latin America.

Lastly, we followed the group to the gift shop to get a free sample of their coffee and their chocolate-covered peaberry coffee beans. We ended up buying a whole bag of stuff, including an ornament for our Christmas tree.

We learned a lot, and after you read this, I hope you have too. It was very hard to go home.

-Kyle Wilson