Coffee: It's That Time of Year

It's coffee harvest time. School is out and Nov, Dec, and Jan are the peak months for collection and processing.

The hills are covered with "mata" or coffee plants. When the coffee is ripe, it turns red from its green, unripe color. It is then dried and peeled. The peeled bean is white and is dried further and then roasted. Finally, the roasted bean is ground. Historically, this was done on stones like the Native Americans ground corn. Now it's mill-ground, primarily. The traditional belief is that plants have souls and to grind the beans in a machine hurts its soul and the bean cries out. The flavor isn't as good for having induced this trauma on the soul of the bean. But, hand grinders can't compete financially so almost all marketed coffee it mill-ground.

The Parish has much of its own land and also purchases beans from local growers at Fair Trade prices. I'm still learning what is meant by Fair Trade but it was explained to me that the price is kept steady so that farmers aren't as affected by temporary market fluctuations. Also, rules are placed on how the plants and beans are harvested. For example, a Fair Trade purchasers might insist that the beans it buys have not been exposed to fertilizers or environmentally toxic pesticides and that children under 12 not be involved in the harvest.

Local growers I spoke with weren't jumping up and down about the Fair Trade system but seemed to think that in some cases it was good.