Coffee coffee coffee

Showing us how to pick coffee beans

I love my coffee. I love sitting in the morning and starting my day with a nice hot cup of coffee with hazelnut creamer. Up until yesterday, I just sat and enjoyed my coffee without understanding how much work goes into making that wonderful cup of morning goodness. A neighbor, Betty, invited me to make coffee with her yesterday. And, oh my word, what a lot of work it is. :)

So I already knew that up our mountain they grow coffee beans. Once, when we were up the mountain doing a Sunday service, a community member showed us how to know when the beans were ripe and how to pick them. So now I was excited to know the rest of the process.







I got to her house about 8, with my kids and granola bars in tow. She had the fire going and the pan hot and ready for us to start. She started by taking several bowl's full of green beans (8-10 cups?) that had already been shucked from their skins and dried in the sun.

tossing the coffee beans around

She poured the beans onto the hot pan and started mixing them with 2 large spoons.
This was so they didn't burn, to also rotate the beans and later on, I learned that it cooled them off a bit when they were tossed up in the air. This process took about a half an hour. When this process was done, the beans were brown/black and smelled like roasted beans with a slight hint of coffee.

 
 

 
 

Betty, then poured the beans into another large pot and shook them around and blew the ash and pieces of husk off of the newly roasted beans.

Me trying to roast the beans - I was concerned that I was going to burn them



Hannah and Betty Grinding the beans

Then came the work. We placed a cup or so of roasted beans into a hand crank grinder. And we ground, and ground, and ground until the bowl was full. Now, at this point it started to smell amazing!! Aaaahhh the sweet smell of fresh coffee.

Soon it was my turn to grind while Betty's daughter brewed us up a fresh cup of coffee.  It was so yummy!!!

Some other things I learned as we were visiting was that it isn't good for your body to roast coffee this way everyday. Something with the smoke or something. Also, because you are in front of the fire and using your wrist constantly to stir the beans - they say not to shower immediately afterwards because of the extreme change in temperature - that it would make your wrists sore. (this is also because they use cold water to bathe.)





Ahhh this is the freshest it gets

It was a very fun experience but I am glad I don't have to do this everyday. :) The best part however was being able to share a morning with my neighbor and enjoy a cup of coffee with her. I truly enjoy getting to know the people I live with.

Betty roasts all of El Ayudante's coffee. I get to enjoy it every morning.

coffee with friends

While we were busy roasting, Isaac made a friend. He and Rodrigo played cars,
 chased the chickens and shared a granola bar.