ORGANIC COFFEE

Coffee has a very rich and ancient history. It has been a beverage from the rich, the poor, the working class, royalty and of warriors. Some believe coffee's first cultivation dates back to 575 B.C. in Yemen. It is said that a pilgrims from India named Baba Budan smuggled out the first seeds to be germinated from the very tightly controlled areas of the Middle East. Coffee quickly found a place in south Asia's traditions and culture until the 1700's when a disease called "rust" wiped out many of the plantations. We are reintroducing coffee and coffee culture back to South Asia where it has very strong roots. Coffee has been grown in Nepal and sub-continent for hundreds of years. Many of the present tea plantations first planted coffee. Tea was the natural choice since it is resistant to the rust disease. In the 1980's coffee was planted in the Terai and the hill regions of Nepal. The new varieties have thrived and are producing fair amounts of coffee. Coffee can be commercially produced in many parts of the country. However, there is great potentiality in mid hills region for organic coffee production as it has got suitable climate, topography, Soil, relative humidity, Temperature and Rainfall for Arabica coffee. Some Districts like Gulmi, Palpa, Arghakhanchi, Lalitpur,Tanahu, Kavre, Sindhupalchowk, Lamjung, Kaski, Gorkha, Syangja, Parbat, Baglung are successfully growing and producing Coffee beans and is increasing gradually. This will certainly help in diversifying process and will increase the income of the farmers as well as other individuals involved in coffee processing and marketing enterprise. With the popularity of Nepali coffee among the tourists and expatriates, the demand of Nepali coffee in the domestic market improved from the mid nineties, creating renewed interest and the growers started planting coffee in an extensive way.
1. Coffee Harvesting Times

Each year coffee is harvested during the dry season (end of Feb till 1st week of April) when the coffee cherries are bright red, glossy, and firm.

2. How (Picking) Harvest Coffee Beans 

Ripe cherries are picked by hand, our local coffee pickers mainly women from the area who was trained in coffee cherry picking. We will form 1 to 2 different team of cherry pickers each day and each team consist of 5 women. It is strictly to pick the ripen cherries and leave the unripe cherries is left on trees till they are fully ripe and ready for picking. All the picked coffee cherries are transported or carried by the pickers quickly to the collection center in the farm.

3.Coffee Pulping

Once the days picked is completed the coffee cherries are brought to the pulping station for inspection. Our farm manager inspects the coffee cherries to make sure there are no twigs, grasses or leaves attached with the coffee cherries. Then each lot of picked cherries are weighted and then sent to our collection tanks filled with water where density sorting occurs. In this stage we basically separate the floaters from the sinkers. The cherries that float on the top of the tank are removed and only ripe cherries that are completely submerged in water are sent to the pulping machines to remove the pulp.

4. Coffee Processing

The pulp machine and hand pulp will remove the outer part of the cherries and the coffee seed is released through the screen. The coffee seeds are removed to another wash tank where they are fully washed again for several time and finally they go for fermentation for next 16 to 36 hour depending on weather and outside temperature.

5. Coffee Fermentation

The coffee beans are covered in the slippery mucilage and sent to the fermentation tanks. The coffee fermentation tanks are used to remove the mucilage before drying. The pulped coffee beans are put into cement tanks with water and are allowed to ferment for 16-36 hours. On the way to the fermentation tanks, another density separation can occur. The highest quality coffees are the densest and should be separated and fermented in a different tank.

6. Coffee Drying

From the coffee fermentation tanks, the beans are moved to drying patios and dried to 11-12% moisture content. A small portion of the dried coffee parchment is hulled and milled by a mini-huller. Three hundred grams of coffee is classified for defects (100 grams is often used), and the percentage of each screen size is determined. Then, 200-300 grams of coffee is roasted in a sample roaster and cupped to determine coffee quality.

Prepare By - Puskar panth
E-mail  puskarpant10@gmail.com
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specially thanks
khageshwor pantha&Krishna pd. pantha