All about coffeeUkers, William H. (William Harrison)
History
All about coffee
Ukers, William H. (William Harrison)
Coffee; Coffee Industry; Drinking customs
For hulling dry cherry coffee there are several excellent makes of
machines. In one style, the hulling takes place between a rotating disk
and the casing of the machine. In another, it takes place between a
rotary drum covered with a steel plate punched with vertical bulbs, and
a chilled iron hulling-plate with pyramidal teeth cast on the plate.
Both are adjustable to different varieties of coffee. In still another
type of machine, the hulling takes place between steel ribs on an
internal cylinder, and an adjustable knife, or hulling blade, in front
of the machine.
[Illustration: EL MONARCA COFFEE CLASSIFIER]
_Sizing or Grading_
The coffee bean is now clean, the processes described in the foregoing
having removed the outer skin, the saccharine pulp, the parchment, and
the silver skin. This is the end of the cleaning operations; but there
are two more steps to be taken before the coffee is ready for the trade
of the world--sizing and hand-sorting. These two operations are of great
importance; since on them depends, to a large extent, the price the
coffee will bring in the market.
[Illustration: Old rope-drive transmission on Finca Ona.]
[Illustration: Hydro-electric power plant on Finca Ona.
HYDRO-ELECTRIC INSTALLATION ON A GUATEMALA FINCA]
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_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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