Coffee Processing: From Farm to Ship, See it happen!

Ever wondered about what’s behind your morning cup of coffee?

For those interested in seeing what happens to coffee after it’s been harvested, washed, dried, and loaded into bags, here’s your post!

 From farm to processing plant

After the coffee has reached an optimum humidity, it’s ready to be packed into bags and either stored, or transported to a processing plant. Today, we’ll take a look at what happens next when coffee is processed.

At this stage in the coffee cycle, the coffee is called “pergamino” or parchment coffee in English, as the coffee has a thin paper like shell covering the coffee seeds. This is the “plantable” coffee seed. We’ll need to remove the parchment covering, and clean any defects that will show once we see the green coffee beans inside.

Coffee drying table

The coffee is used to fill large sacks, which will then be transported via truck to town.

Carrying the Coffee
Coffee arrives from the farm

Next the coffee arrives at the warehouse, where it is weighed, humidity tested, and then stored until ready for processing.

Coffee in the warehouse prior to processing

The coffee is loaded into a concrete hopper, fed into a series of machines to remove the parchment shell, cleaned, and finally run through an optical sorter which removes defects based on color.

Coffee is loaded into a concrete hopper

The coffee then runs through a machine to remove the parchment shell
Green coffee beans after processing to remove parchment
Separating Coffee By Weight

After the parchment is removed, the gravimetric machine will separate beans by weight (size) and remove many defects from the green coffee.

Coffee Optical Defect Screener

The optical scanner separates green coffee from other discolored beans. It is highly effective at removing flawed coffee. The end result is green coffee with nearly zero defects, and ready for you to roast & enjoy!

Coffee is weighed and then loaded into bags
Coffee Micro Lots Await Pickup in Villa Rica

Finally, after all the processing, the coffee is repacked in Grainpro and burlap bags. Transport is arranged from the plant to a warehouse in Callao (Lima,) and awaits Peruvian Customs inspection and then will be loaded onto a ship for delivery to the US (Los Angeles.)

So, hopefully that’s everything you ever wanted to know about coffee processing 🙂

©2015 Ben Gangloff

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