Old-School Coffee Processing - Day 1

We decided to do a little old-fashion processing. We took the 2lbs of coffee cherries that we picked the other day and decided that we would would hand process them. We have access to machines, but we wanted to document the process with a small batch using only common, every day items and manual labor. (We should have watched YouTube first, because there were quicker ways to do this first step, which involved using only a board and mashing the cherries :)

Step 1: Take the outer red peel off. This was much like peeling a rubbery grape. Our hands became sticky and slimy. It took us about an hour to peel the bowl of 2 lbs, however, we were always looking for better ways of doing it and laughing at how slimy our hands were.

TaDa!!!! One bowl of red slimy peels and 1 bowl of slimy seeds!

After a rinse, they went outside to dry in the sun. They were very wet and slimy for the first couple of hours, so every 20 minutes they were "raked" so that the sun could dry each side.

The beans are no longer wet to the touch, but they are now in the "parchment" stage. The actual coffee bean is drying and shrinking inside of the husk of parchment. The beans are not yet dry enough to have the parchment removed today, but I did just weight the pile. It is .96 lbs right now. We have lost over 1 lb. since we started removing the outer cherry and drying the beans. I am hoping to have a half pound at the end this adventure, but at this rate...that might be a little optimistic. I will let you know how the rest goes later!