Our neighbors and friends Anna and Emilio have taught us a lot about the coffee business. Although they only speak Spanish, we have managed to at least understand a good percentage of our animated conversations! At the beginning of the picking season they offered many helpful pointers that we were grateful to have learned. Now that we are no longer picking but waiting for the new crop to bloom, Anna and Emilo took us through the process they use to roast and grind their coffee. They live in San Ramon but have a house and coffee farm in Berlin and arrived on Saturday a few weeks ago with their motorized grinder and "roaster"!
You can see here the "roaster", which is actually a small type of bar-b-q, that they used to roast the coffee. The roasting process took about 30 to 45 minutes, I think. As Anna was stirring we were chatting and really did not keep track of the time!
The coffee is done roasting and now needs to cool! Although we enjoyed the mild smell of the coffee at this point, once the grinding began it was spectacular!
Next is the grinding process which went quickly! The grinder looks like a meat grinder we have with a special coffee grinding attachment. Unlike our meat grinder it is powered by a small motor!
The ground coffee flew around a bit, hence working on the porch, but the grinder did a great job. The next step was brewing a cup or two with a snack and, of course, more conversation. Once the grinding and tasting were finished we went on a tour of Anna and Emilio's finca and ours and continued to learn from both of them things about raising coffee. Thank you Anna and Emilio we had a great time!
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