Hello friends! Happy weekend to you.

The past two weeks have been a little different for me. The regular pace and rhythm of life at the Choza has been broken up by two trips to Ciudad Colon to visit the University for Peace. This week I attended their Internship Fair to talk about our Fellowship program with the students. It was really exciting to get to hear from the students what ideas have captured them and what fields they are pursuing. The mission of UPeace is to “provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace with the aim of promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress”. Hm. Inspiring. I spoke with one student who is from eastern Congo. She was so passionate and told me, “I am really very interested in peace education. I believe that peace really can come through education for our children!” Right on, Marthe!

I am heading back to La Choza today, and I’m not sure what the weekend will hold. Definitely some long walks, reading, and studying. We’ll see what else transpires In the meantime, I wanted to share the coffee post I’ve been working on. It’s been a whole month since we harvested the berries, and I’ve finally made it (almost) all the way through the process. I definitely have a new appreciation of the work that goes into each cup! So, without further ado…

How to Make Café: from berries to beans

First, go on a really long hike with some really wonderful people, and learn how to pick coffee from trees taller than your house. The berries fall into a sack, held by your friends like a hammock underneath the branches.

Take your berries home, and soak them in water for days. Some people don’t soak their berries at all, and that works too. If you’re lucky enough to harvest solely red berries, you probably don’t need to soak them. We harvested an especially tough-skinned variety, so soaking was helpful. Your coffee may soak anywhere from 3 days to a week. I soaked mine for 5 days, and could have soaked them longer. Change the water every other day or so, and keep an eye on  your berries so they don’t spoil.

When you think it’s time (go with your gut), lay your coffee out in the sun on a large sack or a sheet. Every morning, put it in a place that gets a lot of intense sun during the day, and every night bring the sack inside. Repeat this for as long as you need to. The goal is to have the skin of your berries “bien seca”, which means really, really dry. You should be able to peel them fairly easily by hand at this point. My berries sat out for almost a week and a half!

The next step is removing the skin from your berries. Coffee has three layers–an outer skin, an inner skin, and the coffee bean. Here’s what the berries look like after drying:

Here they are with the first layer removed:

And here’s the beans:

The typical process of removing the skin requires something called a pilón which looks like a giant mortar and pestle. You crush the berries in the pilón until the outer layers fall off, and separate the basura from the beans much like wheat is separated from chaff. Since I had such a small harvest, I crushed the berries by hand with a large rolling pin. It worked, but next time I’ll be using a pilón :)

After this step, your beans are ready to roast. I haven’t had a chance to do it yet, but trust me, it’s coming. Most folks around here do it over a wood stove, and the coffee takes on a smokey flavor. It’s lovely. However, you can still do it on a gas stove. Place the beans in a heavy pot and roast over low heat, stirring frequently. I’ll be sure to post some pictures of the roasting process when I get there.

And that’s it! I’m pretty excited to try the coffee these beans make–I hear it’s extra strong. I may wait until I can get a handful of people to try it with me. That’s an experience that needs to happen with friends

Until next week!

-Mariah