Coffee merchandising

It is doubtful if in all nature there is a more cunningly devised food package than the fruit of the coffee tree. It is very like a cherry, though somewhat elongated and having in its outer end a small umbilicus. But mark with what ingenuity the package has been constructed! The outer wrapping is a thin, gossamer-like skin which incloses a soft pulp, sweetish to the taste, but of mucilaginous consistency. This pulp in turn is wrapped about the inner seal, called the parchment, because of its tough texture. The parchment incloses the magic bean in its last wrapping, a delicate silver-colored skin, not unlike fine-spun silk or the sheerest of tissue papers. And this last wrapping is so tenacious, so true to its guardianship function, that no amount of rough treatment can dislodge it altogether, for parts of it remain clinging to the bean even into the roasting and grinding processes.

Coffee is said to be “in the husk,” or “in the parchment,” when the whole fruit is dried; and it is called “hulled coffee” when it has been deprived of its hull and peel. The matter forming the fruit, called the coffee berry, covers two thin, hard, oval seed vessels held together, one to the other, by their flat sides. These seed vessels, when broken open, contain the raw coffee beans of commerce. They are usually of a roundish oval shape, convex on the outside, flat inside, marked longitudinally in the center of the flat side with a deep incision, and wrapped in the thin pellicle known as the silver skin. When one of the two seeds aborts, the remaining one acquires greater size, and fills the interior of the fruit, which in that case, of course, has but one cellule. This abortion is common in the Arabica variety, and produces a bean formerly called gragé coffee, but now more commonly known as peaberry, or male berry.

The various coverings of the coffee beans are almost always removed on the plantations in the producing countries. Properly to prepare the raw beans, it is necessary to remove the four coverings,—the outer skin, the sticky pulp, the parchment or husk, and the closely adhering silver skin.

There are two distinct methods of treating the coffee fruits, or “cherries.” One process, the one that until recent years was in general use throughout the world, and is still in many producing countries, is known as the dry method. The coffee prepared in this way is sometimes called “common,” “ordinary,” or “natural,” to distinguish it from the product that has been cleaned by the wet or washed method. The wet method, or, as it is sometimes designated, the “West Indian process” (W.I.P.), is practised on many of the large modern plantations that happen to have a sufficient supply of water.

In the wet process, the first step is called pulping; the second is fermentation and washing; the third is drying; the fourth is hulling or peeling; and the last, sizing or grading. In the dry process, the first step is drying; the second, hulling; and the last, sizing or grading.

The coffee cherry ripens six to seven months after the tree has flowered, or blossomed, and becomes a deep, purplish crimson color. It is then ready for picking. The ripening season varies throughout the world, according to climate and altitude. In the state of São Paulo, Brazil, the harvesting season lasts from May to September; while in Java, where three crops are produced annually, harvesting is almost a continuous process throughout the year. In Colombia, the harvesting seasons are March and April, and November and December. In Guatemala, the crops are gathered from October through December; in Venezuela, from November through March. In Mexico, the coffee is harvested from November to January; in Haiti, the harvest extends from May to December; in Arabia, from September to March; in Abyssinia, from September through November. In Uganda, Africa, there are two main crops, one ripening in March and the other in September, and picking is carried on during practically every month except December and January. In India, the fruit is ready for harvesting from October to January.

Picking

The general practice throughout the world has been to hand pick the fruit; although in some countries the cherries are allowed to become fully ripe on the trees and to fall to the ground. The introduction of the wet method of preparation, indeed, has made it largely unnecessary to hand pick crops, and the tendency seems to be away from this practice on the larger plantations. If the berries are gathered promptly after dropping, the beans are not injured, and the cost of harvesting is reduced.

The picking season is a busy time on a large plantation. All hands join in the work,—men, women, and children,—for it must be rushed. Overripe berries shrink and dry up. The pickers, with baskets slung over their shoulders, walk between the rows, stripping the berries from the trees, using ladders to reach the topmost branches, and sometimes even taking immature fruit in their haste to expedite the work. About 30 pounds are considered a fair day’s work under good conditions. As the baskets are filled, they are emptied at a “station” in that particular unit of the plantation, or, in some cases, directly into wagons that keep pace with the pickers. The coffee is freed as much as possible of sticks, leaves, etc., and is then conveyed to the preparation grounds.

A space of several acres is needed for the various preparation processes on the larger plantations; the plant including concrete-surfaced drying grounds, large fermentation tanks, washing vats, mills, warehouses, stables, and even machine shops. In Mexico, this place is known as the beneficio; in Brazil, the cafezale.

Washed and Unwashed Coffee

Where water is plenty, the ripe coffee cherries are fed by a stream of water into a pulping machine, which breaks the outer skins, permitting the pulpy matter enveloping the beans to be loosened and carried away in further washings. It is this wet separation of the sticky pulp from the beans, instead of allowing it to dry on them, to be removed later with the parchment in the hulling operation, that makes the distinction between washed and unwashed coffees. Where water is scarce, the coffees are unwashed.

Either method being well done, does washing improve the strength and flavor? Opinions differ. The soil, altitude, climatic influences, and cultivation methods of a country give its coffee certain distinctive drinking qualities. Washing immensely improves the appearance of the bean; it also reduces curing costs. Generally speaking, washed coffees will always command a premium over coffees dried in the pulp.

Whether coffee is washed or not, it has to be dried; and there is a kind of fermentation that goes on during washing and drying about which coffee planters have differing ideas, just as tea planters differ over the curing of tea leaves. Careful scientific study is needed to determine how much, if any, effect this fermentation has on the ultimate cup value.

Preparation by the Dry Method

The dry method of preparing the berries is not only the older method, but is considered by some operators as providing a distinct advantage, over the wet process, since berries of different degrees of ripeness can be handled at the same time. However, the success of this method is dependent largely on the continuance of clear warm weather over quite a length of time, which cannot always be counted on.

In this process the berries are spread in a thin layer on open drying grounds, or barbecues, often having cement or brick surfaces. The berries are turned over several times a day in order to permit the sun and wind thoroughly to dry all parts. The sun-drying process lasts about three weeks; and after the first three days of this period the berries must be protected from dews and rains by covering them with tarpaulins, or by raking them into heaps under cover. If the berries are not spread out, they heat, and the silver skin sticks to the coffee bean, and frequently discolors it. When thoroughly dry, the berries are stored, unless the husks (outer skin and inner parchment) are to be removed at once. Hot air, steam, and other artificial drying methods take the place of natural sun-drying on some plantations.

In the dry method, the husks are removed either by hand (threshing and pounding in a mortar, on the smaller plantations) or by specially constructed machinery, known as hulling machines.

The Wet Method—Pulping

The wet method of preparation is the more modern form, and is generally practised on the larger plantations which have a sufficient supply of water, and enough money to install the quite extensive amount of machinery and equipment required. It is generally considered that washing results in a better grade of bean.

In this method the cherries are sometimes thrown into tanks full of water to soak for about 24 hours, so as to soften the outer skins and underlying pulp to a condition that will make them easily removable by the pulping machine; the idea being to rub away the pulp by friction without crushing the beans.

On the larger plantations, however, the coffee cherries are dumped into large concrete receiving tanks, from which they are carried the same day by streams of running water directly into the hoppers of the pulping machines.

At least two score of different makes of pulping machines are in use in the various coffee-growing countries. Pulpers are made in various sizes, from the small, hand-operated machine to the large type driven by power, and in two general styles,—cylinder and disk.

The cylinder pulper, the latest style—suggesting a huge nutmeg-grater—consists of a rotary cylinder surrounded with a copper or brass cover punched with bulbs. These bulbs differ in shape according to the species, or variety of coffee, to be treated,—Arabica, Liberica, Robusta, Canephora, or what not. The cylinder rotates against a breast with pulping edges set at an angle. The pulping is effected by the rubbing action of the copper cover against the edges, or ribs, of the breast. The cherries are subjected to a rubbing and rolling motion, in the course of which the two parchment-covered beans contained in the majority of the cherries become loosened. The pulp itself is carried by the cover and is discharged through a pulp shoot, while the pulped coffee is delivered through holes in the breast. Cylinder machines vary in capacity from 400 pounds (hand power) to 4,800 pounds (motive power) an hour.

Some cylinder pulpers are double, being equipped with rotary screens or oscillating sieves, which segregate the imperfectly pulped cherries so that they may be put through again. Pulpers are also equipped with attachments that automatically move the imperfectly pulped material over into a repassing machine for another rubbing. Others have attachments to crush the cherries partially before pulping.

The breasts in cylinder machines are usually made with removable steel ribs; but in Brazil, Nicaragua, and other countries, where, owing to the short season and scarcity of labor, the planters have to pick, simultaneously, green, ripe, and overripe (dry) cherries, rubber breasts are used.

The disk pulper (the earliest type, having been in use for more than 70 years) is the style most generally used in the Dutch East Indies and in some parts of Mexico. The results are the same as those obtained with the cylindrical pulper. The disk machine is made with one, two, three, or four vertical iron disks, according to the capacity desired. The disks are covered on both sides with a copper plate of the same shape, and punched with blind punches. The pulping operation takes place between the rubbing action of the blind punches, or bulbs, on the copper plates and the lateral pulping bars fitted to the side cheeks. As in the cylinder pulper, the distance between the surface of the bulbs and the pulping bar may be adjusted to allow of any clearance that may be required, according to the variety of coffee to be treated.

Disk pulpers vary in capacity from 1,200 pounds to 14,000 pounds of ripe cherry coffee an hour. They, too, are made in combinations employing cylindrical separators, shaking sieves, and repassing pulpers, for completing the pulping of all unpulped or partially pulped cherries.

Fermentation and Washing

The next step in the process consists in running the pulped cherries into cisterns, or fermentation tanks, filled with water, for the purpose of removing such pulp as was not removed in the pulping machine. The saccharin matter is loosened by fermentation in 24 to 32 hours. The mass is kept stirred up for a short time; and, in general practice, the water is drawn off from above, the light pulp floating at the top being removed at the same time. The same tanks are often used for washing, but a better practice is to have separate tanks.

Some planters permit the pulped coffee to ferment in water. This is called the wet fermentation process. Others drain the water from the tanks and conduct the operation in a semi-dry state, called the dry fermentation process.

The coffee bean, when introduced into the fermentation tanks, is inclosed in a parchment shell made slimy by its closely adhering saccharin coat. After fermentation, which not only loosens the remaining pulp but also softens the membranous covering, the beans are given a final washing, either in washing tanks or by being run through mechanical washers. The type of washing machine generally used consists of a cylindrical tub having a vertical spindle fitted with a number of stirrers, or arms, which, in rotating, stir and lift up the parchment coffee. In another type, the cylinder is horizontal, but the operation is similar.

Drying

The next step in preparation is drying. The coffee, which is still “in the parchment,” but is now known as washed coffee, is spread out thinly on a drying ground, as in the dry method. However, if the weather is unsuitable or cannot be depended upon to remain fair for the necessary time, there are machines which can be used to dry the coffee satisfactorily. On some plantations, the drying is started in the open and finished by machine. The machines dry the coffee in 24 hours, while 10 days are required by the sun.

The object of the drying machine is to dry the parchment of the coffee so that it may be removed as readily as the skin on a peanut, and this object is achieved in the most approved machines by keeping a hot current of air stirring through the beans. One of the best-liked types, the Guardiola, resembles the cylinder of a coffee-roasting machine. It is made of perforated steel plates in cylinder form, and is carried on a hollow shaft through which the hot air is circulated by a pressure fan. The beans are rotated in the revolving cylinder; and as the hot air strikes the wet coffee it creates a steam that passes out through the perforations of the cylinder. Within the cylinder are compartments equipped with winged plates, or ribs, that keep the coffee constantly stirred up to facilitate the drying process. Another favorite is the O’Krassa. It is constructed on the principle just described, but differs in detail of construction from the Guardiola, and is able to dry its contents a few hours quicker. Hot air, steam, and electric heat are all employed in the various makes of coffee driers. A temperature from 65° to 85° centigrade is maintained during the drying process.

When thoroughly dry, the parchment can be crumbled between the fingers, and the bean within is too hard to be dented by fingernail or teeth.

Hulling, Peeling, and Polishing

The last step in the preparation process is called hulling or peeling, both words accurately describing the purpose of the operation. Some husking machines for hulling or peeling parchment coffee are polishers as well. This work may be done on the plantation or at the port of shipment just before the coffee is shipped abroad. Sometimes the coffee is exported in parchment, and is cleaned in the country of consumption, but practically all coffee entering the United States arrives without its parchment.

Peeling machines, more accurately named hullers, work on the principle of rubbing the beans between a revolving inner cylinder and an outer covering of woven wire. Machines of this type vary in construction. Some have screw-like inner cylinders, or turbines, others having plain cone-shaped cores on which are knobs and ribs that rub the beans against one another and the outer shell. Practically all types have sieve or exhaust-fan attachments, which draw the loosened parchment and silver skin into one compartment, while the cleaned beans pass into another.

Polishers of various makes are sometimes used just to remove the silver skin and to give the beans a special polish. Some countries demand a highly polished coffee; and, to supply this demand, the beans are sent through another huller having a phosphor-bronze cylinder and cone. Much Guadeloupe coffee is prepared in this way, and is known as café bonifieur from the fact that the polishing machine is called in Guadeloupe the bonifieur (improver). It is also called café de luxe. Coffee that has not received the extra polish is described as habitant; while coffee in the parchment is known as café en parché. Extra polished coffee is much in demand in the London, Hamburg, and other European markets. A favorite machine for producing this kind of coffee is the Smout combined peeler and polisher, the invention of Jules Smout, a Swiss. Don Roberto O’Krassa also has produced a highly satisfactory combined peeler and polisher.

For hulling dry cherry coffee, there are several excellent makes of machines. In one style, the hulling takes place between a rotating disk and the casing of the machine. In another, it takes place between a rotary drum covered with a steel plate punched with vertical bulbs, and a chilled iron hulling plate with pyramidal teeth cast on the plate. Both are adjustable to different varieties of coffee. In still another type of machine, the hulling takes place between steel ribs on an internal cylinder, and an adjustable knife, or hulling blade, in front of the machine.

Sizing or Grading

The coffee bean is now clean, the processes described in the foregoing having removed the outer skin, the saccharin pulp, the parchment, and the silver skin. This is the end of the cleaning operations; but there are two more steps to be taken before the coffee is ready for the trade of the world,—sizing and hand sorting. These two operations are of great importance; since on them depends, to a large extent, the price the coffee will bring in the market.

Sizing, or grading by sizes, is done in modern commercial practice by machines that automatically separate and distribute the different beans according to size and form. In principle, the beans are carried across a series of sieves, each with perforations varying in size from the others; the beans passing through the holes of corresponding sizes. The majority of the machines are constructed to separate the beans into five or more grades, the principal grades being triage, third flats, second flats, first flats, and first and second peaberries. Some are designed to handle “elephant” and “mother” sizes. The grades have local nomenclature in the various countries.

After grading, the coffee is picked over by hand to remove the faulty and discolored beans that it is almost impossible to remove thoroughly by machine. The higher grades of coffee are often double-picked; that is, picked over twice. When this is done on a large scale, the beans are generally placed on a belt, or platform, that moves at a regulated speed before a line of women and children, who pick out the undesirable beans as they pass on the moving belt. There are small machines of this type built to be operated by one person, who moves the belt mechanism with a treadle.

In Brazil, the operation of some of the large fazendas requires a large number and a great variety of preparation machines and equipment. Generally considered, the state of São Paulo is better equipped with approved machinery than any other commercial district in the world.

Practically every fazenda in Brazil of any considerable commercial importance is equipped with the most modern of coffee-cleaning equipment. Some of the larger ones in the state of São Paulo, like the Dumont and the Schmidt estates, are provided with private railways connecting the fazendas with the main railroad line some miles away, and also have miniature railway systems running through the fazendas to move the coffee from one harvesting and cleaning operation to another. The coffee is carried in small cars that are either pushed by a laborer or are drawn by horse or mule.

Some of the larger fazendas cover thousands of acres, and have several millions of trees, giving the impression of an unending forest stretching far away into the horizon. Here and there are openings in which buildings appear, the largest group of structures usually consisting of those making up the cafezale, or cleaning plant.

Brazilian fazendeiros follow the methods described in the foregoing in preparing their coffee for market, using the most modern of the equipment detailed under the story of the wet method of preparation. On most of the fazendas the machinery is operated by steam or electricity, the latter coming more and more into use each year in all parts of the coffee-growing region.

The workers on some of the largest Brazilian fazendas would constitute the population of a small city, more than a thousand families often finding continuous employment in cultivating, harvesting, cleaning, and transporting the coffee to market. For the most part, the workers are of Italian extraction, who have almost altogether superseded the Indian and Negro laborers of the early days. The workers live on the fazendas in quarters provided by the fazendeiros, and are paid a weekly or monthly wage for their services; or they may enter upon a year’s contract to cultivate the trees, receiving extra pay for picking and other work. Brazil in the past has experimented with the slave system, with government colonization, with cooperative planting, with the harvesting system, and with the share system; and some features of all these plans, except slavery, which was abolished in 1888, are still employed in various parts of the country, although the wage system predominates.

Brazil has six gradings for its São Paulo coffees, which are also classified as Bourbon Santos, flat bean Santos, and Mocha-seed Santos. Rio coffees are graded by the number of imperfections for New York, and as washed and unwashed for Havre.

In Colombia, now (1924), next to Brazil the world’s largest producer, the wet method of preparing the coffee for market is most generally followed, the drying processes often being a combination of sun and drying machines. Many plantations have their own hulling equipment; but much of the crop goes in the cherry to local commercial centers, where there are establishments that make a specialty of cleaning and grading the coffee.

The Colombia coffee crop is gathered twice a year, the principal one in March and April and the smaller one in November and December, although some picking is done throughout the year. For this labor native Indian and Negro women are preferred, as they are more rapid, skilful, and careful in handling the trees. Contrary to the method in Brazil, where the tree at one handling is stripped of its entire bearings, ripe and unripe fruit, here only the fully ripened fruit is picked. That necessitates going over the ground several times, as the berries progressively ripen. More time is consumed in this laborious operation, but it is believed that thereby a better crop of more uniform grade is obtained and in the aggregate with less waste of time and effort.

Colombian planters classify their coffees as café trillado (natural or sun dried), café lavado (washed), café en pergamino (washed and dried in the parchment). They grade them as excelso (excellent), fantasia (excelso and extra), extra, primera (first), segundo (second), caracol (peaberry), monstruo (large and deformed), consumo (defective), and casilla (siftings).

Venezuela employs both the dry and the wet methods of preparation, producing both “washed” and “commons,” and also, like Colombia, has a large part of the coffee cleaned in the trading centers of the various coffee districts. Dry, or unwashed, coffees are known as trillado (milled), and compose the bulk of the country’s output. Venezuela’s plantation-working forces are largely natives of Indian descent and Negroes; some of them coming during harvesting season from adjoining Colombia and returning there after the picking is done. Modern plantation machinery is very scarce; the ancient method of hulling coffee in a circular trough, where the dried berries are crushed by heavy wooden wheels drawn by oxen, is still a common sight in Venezuela. In preparing washed coffees, some planters ferment the pulped coffee under water (wet fermentation process), while others ferment without water (dry fermentation).

The planters in Salvador favor the dry method of coffee preparation, and the bulk of the crop is natural, or unwashed.

Most Guatemalas are prepared for market by the wet method. The gathering of the crops furnishes employment for half the population. German and American settlers have introduced the latest improvements in modern plantation machinery into Guatemala.

In Mexico, coffee is harvested from November to January, and large quantities are prepared by both the dry and the wet methods, the latter being practised on the larger estates that have the necessary water supply and can afford the machinery. Here, too, one will find coffee being cleaned by the primitive hand-mortar and wind-winnowing method. The laborers employed on the plantations are mostly half-breeds and Indians.

In Haiti, the picking season is from November to March. In recent years better attention has been paid to cultural and preparation methods, and the product is more favorably regarded commercially. Both dry and wet methods are employed in Haiti.

In Porto Rico, planters favor the wet method of coffee preparation. The crop is gathered from August to December. The coffees are graded as caracollilo (peaberry), primero (hand-picked), segundo (second grade), trillo (low grade).

The wet method of coffee preparation is mostly favored in Nicaragua. Many of the large plantations are worked by colonies of Americans and Germans, who are competent to apply the abundant natural water power of the country to the operation of the modern coffee-cleaning machinery that has been introduced.

Costa Rica was one of the first countries of the western world to use coffee-cleaning machinery. Marcus Mason, an American mechanical engineer then managing an iron foundry in Costa Rica, invented three machines that would respectively peel off the husk, remove the parchment and pulp, and winnow the light refuse from the beans. Mason brought out other machines until he had developed a complete line that was largely used on coffee plantations in all parts of the world.

Modern cleaning machinery and methods of preparation are employed to some extent in the large coffee-producing countries of the eastern hemisphere, and do not differ materially from those of the western.

In Arabia, the fruit ripens in August or September, and picking continues from then until the last fruits ripen late in the March following. The cherries, as they are picked, are left to dry in the sun on the housetop terrace, or on a floor of beaten earth. When they have become partly dry, they are hulled between two small stones, one of which is stationary, while the other is worked by the hand power of two men who rotate it quickly. Further drying of the hulled berry follows. It is then put into bags of closely woven aloe fiber, lined with matting made of palm leaves. It is next sent to the local market at the foot of the mountain. There, on regular market days, the Turkish or Arabian merchants, or their representatives, buy and dispatch their purchases by camel train to Hodeida or Aden.

In Aden and Hodeida, the bean is submitted to further cleaning by the principal foreign export houses to which it has come from the mountains in rather dirty condition. Indian women are the sole laborers employed in these cleaning houses. First, the coffee beans are separated from the dry empty husks by tossing the whole into the air from bamboo trays, the workers deftly permitting the husks to fly off while the beans are caught again in the tray. The beans are then surface cleaned by passing them gently between two very primitive grindstones worked by men. A third process is the complete clearing of the bean from the silver skin, and it is then ready for the final hand picking. Women are called into service again, and they pick out the refuse husks, quaker or black beans, green or immature beans, white beans, and broken beans, leaving the good beans to be weighed and packed for shipment. The cleaned beans are known as bun safi; the husks become kisher. Some of the poorer beans also are sold, principally to France and Egypt. Hand-power machinery is used to a slight extent, but mostly the old-fashioned methods hold sway.

The Yemen, or Arabian, bale, or package, is unique. It is made up of two fiber wrappers, one inside the other. The inside one is called attal or darouf. It is made from cut and plaited leaves of nakhel douin or narghil, a species of palm. The outer covering, called garair, is a sack made of woven aloe fiber. The Bedouins weave these covers and bring them to the export merchants at Aden and Hodeida. A Mocha bundle contains one, two, or four fiber packages, or bales. When the bundle contains one bale, it is known as a half; when it contains two, it is known as quarters; and when it contains four, it is known as eighths. Arabian coffee for Boston used to be packed in quarters only; for San Francisco and New York, in quarters and eighths. The longberry Abyssinian coffees were formerly packed in quarters only. Since the World War, however, there has been a scarcity of packing materials, and packing in quarters and eighths has stopped. Now, all Mocha, as well as Harar, coffee comes in halfs. A half weighs 80 kilos, or 176 pounds net, although a few exporters ship halfs of 160 pounds.

Little machinery is used in the preparation of coffee in Abyssinia; none, in preparing the coffee known as Abyssinian, which is the product of wild trees, and, only in a few instances in cleaning the Harari coffee, the fruit of cultivated trees. Both classes are raised mostly by natives, who adhere to the oldtime dry method of cleaning. In Harar, the coffee is sometimes hulled in a wooden mortar; but for the most part it is sent to the brokers in parchment, and cleaned by primitive hand methods after its arrival in the trading centers.

In Angola, the coffee harvest begins in June, and it is often necessary for the government to lend native soldiers to the planters to aid in harvesting, as the labor supply is insufficient. After picking, the beans are dried in the sun for 14 to 40 days, depending upon the weather. After drying, they are brought to the hulling and winnowing machines. There are now about 24 of these machines in the Cazengo and Golungo districts, all manufactured in the United States and giving satisfactory results. They are operated by natives.

The coffee industry in Java and Sumatra, as well as in the other coffee-producing regions of the Dutch East Indies, was begun and fostered under the paternal care of the Dutch government, and for that reason machine cleaning has always been a noteworthy factor in the marketing of these coffees. Since the government relinquished its control over the so-called government estates, European operators have maintained the standard of preparation, and have adopted new equipment as it was developed. The majority of estates producing considerable quantities of coffee use the same types of machinery as their competitors in Brazil and other western countries.