The Worth of Processing Shitty Coffee Cherries :)
I feel so strongly about the experience, that it's maybe better to write about it 5 days after.
I bought coffee for $100. $2 per pound for 50lbs. It's one of my goals to focus on processing coffee because of the recent workshop I have attended with Lucia in Colombia.
Now I never bought cherries before. I never knew how. I simply trusted this producer because of the recognition he gets and because he is a smart and kind person.
The coffee represents how you truly work though. I noticed how bad the picking was already as he was weighing my portion and transferring cherries from the other bag. However, my heart immediately fell as I put the cherries into the bucket to float the damaged and the rotten ones.
Floaters
Data:
Weighing the floaters at 32.3lbs (initial trash 64.6%)
17lbs at the bottom
3lbs green
13lbs pulped (with skin on still and very little water added. ** Note that inconsistency)
I began to wonder, "Wow. Is there anything on the bottom that may still be worth saving?"
Weighed the floaters. I took the remaining "supposedly good ones". I was about to pulp by his area but I wanted to sort the green and yellow first. There was too many!
Green, yellow, rotten I took out.
I paid $2 per lb for trash, basically. But here's where we're at. What will this teach me. $100? Is it saving me for a greater loss in the future?
In this amount, I can say that...
1. Producers may do naturals with a heavy fermentation process to mask their coffee with majority defect.
2. This producer's intention for entering competitions for a small portion of coffee is to add price to his name.
3. A person who you can look up to, possibly seen as a mentor, can also fool you. My thoughts run like "wow. I didn't know anything. This person knows that. This producer is knowledgeable about numbers, business, labor wise in coffee. But this person charged me this way.
4. Atleast this initial loss isn't in hundreds/ thousands yet, as I bring myself to learn more processing.
5. I have to study the cherry prices, and how purchasing works, as with the quality I have, this is worth about $20. Found out through some bigger coffee farms that buy cherry, they pay a certain amount based on amount of defect.
6. This is where money becomes the main priority in coffee. It makes me sad because the specialty coffee industry should not move this way.
7. I learned how people cheat.
I was hating the world enough for sorting for 2 hours in the evening after work because the skin was stuck as I was pulping. Blame it on the pulper, but also, why the heck was I going through this work with terrible coffee? Oh yeah! Because I wanna teach myself a lesson?
Great "freaking" job, Danni. *facepalm*
I bought coffee to save time from picking. It was my intention to give credit or to highlight a producers's work with my name/brand and this is what I get. Extra work. I spent too many hours sorting coffee that may be worth less than a pound of good green beans.
Could I say that these thoughts and realizations are worth more than a $100?
I'd heavily give a big <*sighhhhhhh* > and I'd say, "Yes. Indeed. I think this experience is worth more than what I spent, and maybe I can say that it is an investment for what I want to achieve" </ *sighhhhhhhh* >
Why? Because it saved me so much time to know that this is how it works. I could've spent more money but decided to play with 50lbs. I have one year of experience being in the producer’s side of coffee, and now having these realizations gave me a big step on how I could play this game even better.
Please don't get me wrong. This producer is a good person, I believe. I simply cannot accept the idea that this is how some great business minded people work. I just cannot. They have the power to set good standards for the industry, but instead, they do it this way. I'll take what I can from his smart ways, but that's about it.
I won't purchase coffee from him again, but I’ll say thank you because this experience is all part of the process.
Now I get back to sorting parchment too. Heck.
