A Step by Step Journey of Coffee Planting, Picking, Processing and Production at Colombia Santa Barbara Estate
Michael Pollack recently journeyed to Colombia to view Santa Barbara Estate's harvest. In these photos, we will take you through the complete cycle of coffee at the estate. We are lucky enough to carry the Santa Barbara Estate's coffee, you can order it here.
From bean to bean. An unroasted coffee seed about to be planted.
New trees growing on the mountainside, aged about 5 months.
Pickers picking at the height of the harvest. The trees are filled with the ripest of fruit.
Bags of fruit being weighed. The pickers are paid by weight.
After weighing, the coffee is poured into a collection tank.
Fruit collected in a collection tank.
One of two methods of getting down mountain after collecting is in these cable cars.
The other way the coffee is moved is through these metal tubes.
Fruit, now moved down mountain, at the beginning of the wet mill.
Coffee fruit begins the wet process.
Fruit being depulped.
At this point, the coffee fruit is now better defined as a bean or seed. These are beans during fermentation, before drying. This is the stage where the coffee bean is again plantable. The process continues to become roastable coffee beans.
Some beans are also discarded and dried to be used for fertilizer or coffee-tea.
Coffee beans in drying tank. Amount of time depends on the measured moisture content.
Isolated coffee beans, after wash. Not depulped, and dried for a natural process coffee. This is a new small scale method the Santa Barbara Estate is testing to maintain constant temperature and moisture content.
Dried coffee beans bagged to be brought to the dry mill.
Coffee is then sample roasted and cupping takes place.