I am a coffee lover. Outside of Dunkin' Donuts, and of course, the Speedway gas station, my favorite coffee is Kauai Coffee. (Don't knock Speedway coffee until you've tried it!) I remember drinking Kona coffee and thinking it was alright, but Kauai coffee is so ono!
In an earlier entry, I wrote about visiting a coffee shop to learn about fair trade coffee and I remember thinking it would be cool to go to a place where coffee is actually grown. Jesus said, "Ask and you shall receive..." (Matthew 7:7). I don't think I bothered to ask though.
As a local community, we decided to go on an outing to the Kauai Coffee Company for their free guided tour and coffee tasting. Since Kauai Coffee is fully grown in the United States, there are no fair trade issues.
This is one of the Gardenia blossoms. They were all over the trees and will later be replaced by coffee cherries.
The cherries have already been harvested but they left some unpicked for us to see. The coffee bean is inside the cherry. It's the seed/pit of the cherry.
These machines drive over the trees to collect the cherries. They don't need to hand pick the cherries.
The cherries go into this structure. There is water in it. The cherry surface is weakened and the beans get separated. The poor quality beans float and the good quality beans sink. This allows easy separation and removal.
The beans are then dried. You know they are done with the drying process when they resemble peanuts like what you see here. Now they are ready for roasting!
The longer you roast coffee the less caffeine it has.
Dark roast has more body and medium roast has more caffeine!
To get decaf coffee, the beans are sent to Canada where there is a water treatment process. One of our Sisters tried their decaf vanilla macadamia nut blend and loved it! (So, Elmer, if you are looking for gift ideas...)
I took this picture for Sister Caritas. :)
This was my favorite sign!
If you are still reading this, you might have an interest in how things are made. My students and I highly recommend this Mister Rogers video on how crayons are made.
