Visit to San Martin Farms and Dinamica
Dry Mill - March 13, 2024
Ready for Action! We assemble at Fat Cat Café in Antigua.
Excellent espresso!
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Visit to San Martin Farms and Dinamica
Dry Mill - March 13, 2024
Ready for Action! We assemble at Fat Cat Café in Antigua.
Excellent espresso!
Sustainable Association of Producers of Guatemala: ASPROGUATE
Hermes Perez, General Manager of Asproguate, 3 regions: Chimaltenango, Atitlan, AcatenangoAverage size = 1.25 acres
MISSION: to enhance social development between small coffee producers, providing sustainable and differentiated access to international markets Created in 2013
Goals
Demographics
A group of small famers greet us….
Good afternoon! I am the owner of the small parcel of land here – & the producer of this compost..
Thank you, Marcelo and supervisor. They have been training us on how to better cultivate
You can see here my parcel of land– pure organic!
The compost must be kept moist!
He produces about 800 to 900 kgs. of compost = 1,750 à 2,000 lbs. .
The compost we see here will cover about 0.25 acres.
With 1.5 acres on his farm, that is
5 more loads like this.
The tubes are to keep the compost aerated.
Good Afternoon to each of you! Thank you for your visit. My name is Virginia Tubarcalbah.
Good afternoon to all of you. Be welcome, --well since in fact we have been waiting for quite a while (laughter)...(We got lost!)
But, in any case, in reality, we weren’t going to leave!
Many thanks for being here, -- because, in fact, we were so delighted to come to receive you, right?…..
So my name is Inez Balah, -- and I belong to ----- this group of coffee growers.
Making a natural insecticide for the coffee trees….The strong smell also
deters insects. The basic recipe is water saturated with garlic.
“It takes 2 days for a farm to prepare this extract.
“The first step is separating the cloves, then removing the skin.”
Next the cloves are minced and then crushed.
"This brings the smell out!"
The farmers also make an organic liquid fungicide, seen here, using Mexican marigold flowers.
Since ancient times this flower was used for digestive ailments, - and for rituals during the Day of the Dead. For coffee it is used against the fungus called Rust.
The scientific name of the plant is Tagetes Erecta, popularly called the “Flower of theDead.”
The harvest had just ended, so we
could not see cherry picking and processing.
Our visit ended all too soon, but we will return next year to learn more.
So, its off to Dinamica, the Processing Mill on the outskirt of Guatemala City….
Where we see the last of the San Martin cherries being entered into the Washing Mill.
Foreign matter is first removed from the coffee cherries.
Then the cherries are depulped = the skin is removed. This is done in the large cylinders, seen in the background.
The beans, coated in stickymucilage, then go down the shoot into awaiting baskets where they will slowly ferment for up to 40 hours.
The mucilage will then be cleaned off the beans with turbulent water.
The beans are finally dried over 8 to 15 days on concrete patios
The founders of Dinamica:
Gino Roberssi and Francisco Quesada, or Chespi
And now the Dry Mill!
On the left is Drew Zent of La Minita, the
company that imports the coffee for us.
Then there’s me, Jennifer Howell; our Director of QC and Coffee Purchasing, Jon-Paul Galeotalanza; Manager of our Newtonville Café, and Justin DeMichele; Roaster Extraordinaire
A few 152 pound bags….
The coffee beans are still wrapped in parchment, an envelope-like loose skin protecting the beans.
1.The parchment must first be removed for sorting to take place. The beans will begin the process by falling through the grate on the
floor, partially visible on the bottom right.
2. The beans fall below the floor and are sucked up and onto a machine which removes foreign matter. It stays on top, with beans falling through….
Beans in PARCHMENT
From Huller to removal by size.
Vibrating screens separate beans by
size, from large to smaller through vibrating screens….
The bottom screen will be tiny chips.
Each size goes through a different tube.
By Density….
On a tipped vibrating table. Low densityfalls to the right. Denser beans stay to the left as air blows upward.
The denser the bean the better the quality.
By color defect….
Finally into holding bins….
And finally, of course, the cupping. Five cups for each coffee; one single bean can destroy not just a cup but a full carafe of would-be delicious coffee.
We leave, and drive back through
Guatemala City, on our way to Antigua.
The end.