These coffee beans getting dried in preparation for roasting at Kaffee 3 Granos! We spent a few hours manually sorting coffee beans and unloading selected ones in the threshing machine for milling.
These beans come from small farms around Quillabamba. See video below. Tomorrow we are roasting a ‘blend’ of all these coffee beans. 100% Arabica beans. Mainly Typica, Caturra and Catimor.
Drying is a crucial step in the process of producing high-quality specialty coffee beans. After the coffee cherries have been harvested and the pulp removed, the beans must be dried to reduce their moisture content. This helps to ensure that the beans are stable and free from mold and other contaminants.
When I visited a specialty coffee farm, I was fascinated by the process of drying the beans. The beans were spread out on raised beds, which allowed air to circulate around them and helped to promote even drying. The beds were covered with a canopy to protect the beans from the sun and rain.
The process of drying the beans takes several days, and during this time, the beans are carefully monitored to ensure that they are drying evenly. The coffee farmers would constantly check the moisture content of the beans and would turn them regularly to ensure that they were drying evenly.
One of the things I found most interesting about the process of drying specialty coffee beans was how it affected the flavor of the coffee. The length of time that the beans are dried and the conditions under which they are dried can have a significant impact on the flavor and aroma of the final product. For example, coffee that is dried slowly in the shade tends to have a sweeter, more nuanced flavor than coffee that is dried quickly in the sun.
Overall, the process of drying specialty coffee beans is a fascinating and crucial step in the production of high-quality coffee. It requires a lot of care and attention to ensure that the beans are drying evenly and that the final product has the desired flavor and aroma.