All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗
- Author: William H. Ukers
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Sizing, or grading by sizes, is done in modern commercial practise by machines that automatically separate and distribute the different beans according to size and form. In principle, the beans are carried across a series of sieves, each with perforations varying in size from the others; the beans passing through the holes of corresponding sizes. The majority of the machines are constructed to separate the beans into five or more grades, the principal grades being triage, third flats, second flats, first flats, and first and second peaberries. Some are designed to handle "elephant" and "mother" sizes. The grades have local nomenclature in the various countries.
After grading, the coffee is picked over by hand to remove the faulty and discolored beans that it is almost impossible to remove thoroughly by machine. The higher grades of coffee are often double-picked; that is, picked over twice. When this is done on a large scale, the beans are generally placed on a belt, or platform, that moves at a regulated speed before a line of women and children, who pick out the undesirable beans as they pass on the moving belt. There are small machines of this type built for one person, who operates the belt mechanism by means of a treadle.
Preparation in the Leading Countries
The foregoing description tells in general terms the story of the most approved methods of harvesting, shelling, and cleaning the coffee beans. The following paragraphs will describe those features of the processes that are peculiar to the more important large producing countries and that differ in details or in essentials from the methods just outlined.
In the Western Hemisphere
Brazil. The operation of some of the large plantations in Brazil, a number of which have more than a million trees, requires a large number and a great variety of preparation machines and equipment. Generally considered, the State of São Paulo is better equipped with approved machinery than any other commercial district in the world.
In Brazil, coffee plantations are known as fazendas, and the proprietors as fazendeiros, terms that are the equivalent of "landed estates" and "landed proprietors." Practically every fazenda in Brazil of any considerable commercial importance is equipped with the most modern of coffee-cleaning equipment. Some of the larger ones in the state of São Paulo, like the Dumont and the Schmidt estates, are provided with private railways connecting the fazendas with the main railroad line some miles away, and also have miniature railway systems running through the fazendas to move the coffee from one harvesting and cleaning operation to another. The coffee is carried in small cars that are either pushed by a laborer or are drawn by horse or mule.
Photographs by Courtesy of J. Aron & Co.
MAKING BRAZIL COFFEE READY TO MARKET
Some of the larger fazendas cover thousands of acres, and have several millions of trees, giving the impression of an unending forest stretching far away into the horizon. Here and there are openings in which buildings appear, the largest group of structures usually consisting of those making up the cafezale, or cleaning plant. Nearby, stand the handsome "palaces" of the fazendeiros; but not so close that the coffee princes and their households will be disturbed by the almost constant rumble of machinery and the voices of the workers.
Copyright by Brown & Dawson.
Brazilian fazendeiros follow the methods described in the foregoing in preparing their coffee for market, using the most modern of the equipment detailed under the story of the wet method of preparation. On most of the fazendas the machinery is operated by steam or electricity, the latter coming more and more into use each year in all parts of the coffee-growing region.
In some districts, however, far in the interior, there are still to be found small plantations where primitive methods of cleaning are even now practised. Producing but a small quantity of coffee, possibly for only local use, the cherries may be freed of their parchment by macerating the husks by hand labor in a large mortar. On still another plantation, the old-time bucket-and-beam crusher perhaps may be in use.
This consists of a beam pivoted on an upright upon which it moves freely up and down. On one end of the beam is an open bucket; and on the other, a heavy stone. Water runs into the bucket until its weight causes the stone end of the beam to rise. When the bucket reaches the ground, the water is emptied, and the stone crashes down on the coffee cherries lying in a large mortar.
The workers on some of the largest Brazilian fazendas would constitute the population of a small city—more than a thousand families often finding continuous employment in cultivating, harvesting, cleaning, and transporting the coffee to market. For the most part, the workers are of Italian extraction, who have almost altogether superseded the Indian and Negro laborers of the early days. The workers live on the fazendas in quarters provided by the fazendeiros, and are paid a weekly or monthly wage for their services; or they may enter upon a year's contract to cultivate the trees, receiving extra pay for picking and other work. Brazil in the past has experimented with the slave system, with government colonization, with co-operative planting, with the harvesting system, and with the share system. And some features of all these plans—except slavery, which was abolished in 1888—are still employed in various parts of the country, although the wage system predominates.
By Courtesy of J. Aron & Co.
Brazil has six gradings for its São Paulo coffees, which are also classified as Bourbon Santos, Flat Bean Santos, and Mocha-seed Santos. Rio coffees are graded by the number of imperfections for New York, and as washed and unwashed for Havre. (See chapter XXIV.)
Colombia. Practically all the countries of the western hemisphere producing coffee in large quantities for export trade use the cleaning-and-grading machines specified in the first part of this chapter; and the installation of the equipment is increasing as its advantages become better known.
In Colombia, now (1922), next to Brazil the world's largest producer, the wet method of preparing the coffee for market is most generally followed, the drying processes often being a combination of sun and drying machines. Many plantations have their own hulling equipment; but much of the crop goes in the cherry to local commercial centers where there are establishments that make a specialty of cleaning and grading the coffee.
The Colombia coffee crop is gathered twice a year, the principal one in March and April and the smaller one in November and December, although some picking is done throughout the year. For this labor native Indian and negro women are preferred, as they are more rapid, skilful, and careful in handling the trees. Contrary to the method in Brazil, where the tree at one handling is stripped of its entire bearings, ripe and unripe fruit, here only the fully ripened fruit is picked. That necessitates going over the ground several times, as the berries progressively ripen. More time is consumed in this laborious operation, but it is believed that thereby a better crop of more uniform grade is obtained and in the aggregate with less waste of time and effort.
Colombian planters classify their coffees as café trillado (natural or sun-dried), café lavado (washed), café en pergamino (washed and dried in the parchment). They grade them as excelso (excellent), fantasia (excelso and extra), extra (extra), primera, (first), segundo (second), caracol (peaberry), monstruo (large and deformed), consumo (defective), and casilla (siftings).
Venezuela. Venezuela employs both the dry and the wet methods of preparation, producing both "washed" and "commons" and also, like Colombia, has a large part of the coffee cleaned in the trading centers of the various coffee districts. Dry, or unwashed, coffees are known as trillado (milled), and compose the bulk of the country's output. Venezuela's plantation-working forces are largely natives of Indian descent and negroes, some of them coming during harvesting season from adjoining Colombia and returning there after the picking is done. The resident workers labor under a sort of peonage system which is tacitly recognized by both employee and employer, although no laws of peonage or slavery have ever existed in Venezuela. Under this system, the laborers live in little colonies scattered over the haciendas, as the coffee plantations are called in Venezuela. Company stores keep them supplied with all their wants. Modern plantation machinery is very scarce; the ancient method of hulling coffee in a circular trough where the dried berries are crushed by heavy wooden wheels drawn by oxen, is still a common sight in Venezuela. In preparing washed coffees, some planters ferment the pulped coffee under water (wet fermentation process); while others ferment without water (dry fermentation).
This Old-Fashioned Hulling Machine Is Operated by Ox Power in Venezuela
The principal ports of shipments for Venezuela coffees are La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, and Maracaibo. Caracas, the capital, is five miles in an air line from the port of La Guaira; but in ascending the three thousand feet of altitude to the city the railroad twists and turns among the mountains for a distance of twenty-four miles. By rail or motor the trip is one of much charm and great beauty.
Salvador. The planters in Salvador favor the dry method of coffee preparation; and the bulk of the crop is natural, or unwashed.
Guatemala. Most Guatemalas are prepared for market by the wet method. The gathering of the crops furnishes employment for half the population. German and American settlers have introduced the latest improvements in modern plantation machinery into Guatemala.
Mexico. In Mexico coffee is harvested from November to January, and large quantities are prepared by both the dry and the wet methods, the latter being practised on the larger estates that have the necessary water supply and can afford the machinery. Here, too, one will find coffee being cleaned by the primitive hand-mortar and wind-winnowing method. Laborers are mostly half-breeds and Indians. Chinese coolies have been tried and found satisfactory, and some Japanese are utilized, though not largely.
Street Car Coffee Transport in Orizaba, Mexico
Haiti. In Haiti the picking season is from November to March. In recent years better attention has been paid to cultural and preparation methods; and the product is more favorably regarded commercially. Large quantities are shipped to France and Belgium; and much of that
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