A budding career in coffee?
April 12, 2009 by meredithwilliams
Albi hard at work at the coffee co-op.
By guest blogger Albi Staggers
On Wednesday afternoon, we had the privilege of touring and observing the facilities of the local coffee cooperative. The manager of the cooperative’s facilities then gave us a tour of the rest of the facilities – several machines for “skinning” the ripe coffee cherries, a concrete drying patio, a roasting machine, and an area for drying certified organic coffee.
Personally, I was highly impressed with the efforts taken by the cooperative to operate in an environmentally efficient manner. Even in Honduras, efforts are being made to reduce child labor and protect the environment. The manager informed us that the farmers were paid extra for their coffee beans, if they guaranteed no children were used as laborers and their coffee plants were pesticide-free.
Additionally, the cooperative offered certified sundried organic coffee – produced with no chemical fertilizer, herbicides or pesticides and dried on a special, plastic enclosed table (the workers were even prohibited from smoking on the grounds of the cooperative to ensure the integrity of the beans!!). Finally, the cooperative produced its own organic fertilizer using the wasted pulp of the coffee cherry from the beginning of the process. A Colombian worm (Flordy, as we affectionately called it, and which, incidentally, happened to be its actual name) was then introduced into the pulp and the feces used as fertilizer.
I also got to participate in the coffee production process by briefly raking the drying coffee beans on the concrete patio – a task easier said than done! After raking two rows out of the approximately ten, I was ready to call it quits. I’d still prefer slaving over a law textbook in the library, to bending over a rake, drying coffee beans all day! I guess my career in the coffee business will have to wait indefinitely.
