Café del Canasto

In my last post I mentioned that I learnt how to make coffee, from the plant to the cup, on the farm I was staying at. Here's a sneak peak into the coffee-making process.

The coffee plant

First we picked the beans. The basket (canasto in Spanish), you see below, inspired the name of the coffee produced and packaged on Finca Bella Vista. Café del Canasto has been around for 20 years and is a family business which sells organic coffee. 

The yellow, orange and red beans are ripe

After skinning the beans and soaking them in water, the ones which stay on the bottom are ready for the next step!

The beans need to dry for 10 days.

Alexis explaining the coffee process 

Beans drying

Once they've dried, the beans are de-shelled. The shells are used as compost on our farm, but on other coffee farms they bag it and sell it. It could be used to make paper and bags (see below).

Then you roast the beans for 60min and grind the finished product, if you desire.

Here you can see Alexis manually roasting the beans

Roasted beans

Alexis takes so much pride in making his coffee, from picking the beans to sticking the labels perfectly onto the bags. You can certainly taste the love!