Processing the cherries

Once picked, the coffee cherries need to be processed rapidly so they don’t spoil. In many countries they are put out in the sun to dry and covered if there’s a chance of rain. It can take several weeks to dry the coffee cherries. Another way of processing the coffee cherries is to remove the pulp first and then dry them. Once dry, these are known as ‘parchment coffee’ and they are ready for milling.

This process includes removing the parchment (hulling), optionally polishing the beans, and getting them sorted and graded. Any bean that has insect damage or other imperfections is discarded. This is how coffee producers make sure that only perfect beans get exported. What’s left after this process is called green coffee and it’s ready for export. Some 7 million tonnes of green coffee are shipped around the world every year.

Time for tasting

Next, it’s time to taste the coffee, something that happens at various stages of the process. The tasting process is known as cupping and it’s an essential skill in coffee production. Cuppers may have to sample dozens or hundreds of coffee samples every day and must be able to distinguish between them. Any beans that make it past this stage are ready for roasting, which turns them into the beans we know so well. The roasting process releases the coffee flavour then the beans are cooled.

Nearing the end of the coffee preparation process, it’s time for grinding the beans. The type of grind varies depending on where the coffee will be used. After that the freshly ground coffee is packaged, either for direct sale or contained within the capsules for our best-selling Kenco Singles office coffee machine. The single-cup amounts stay fresh within the individually sealed capsules, ready to be brewed and enjoyed!

1. Build a house

Building a house with plastic water bottles is not as crazy as you might think. In fact, it’s been done before by a German man called Andreas Froese who has a company in Honduras called Eco-Tec. Plastic bottles are useful for building because they are not expensive, they’re not brittle, they make good shock absorbers and they can be reused. All you have to do is fill them with mud and you have the perfect brick replacement. Check out the Eco-Tec site to see pictures of houses built using plastic bottles.

2. Make insulation

This is related to the first use and is an inspirational example of how to solve two problems at once. Volunteer Laura Kutner was working in Guatemala when she realised that the bottles she was drinking from with the same size as the frames for the walls in the school where she worked. She started a project to fill the bottles with the trash that was littering the town and then encase them in chicken wire and cement them to make insulated walls. The project brought the community together and is now ready for duplication in other parts of the world.

3. Create your own island

Many of us dream of having our own private island but how many of us know exactly how to get one without spending a fortune? Richard Sowa created his own private island off Cancun by using empty plastic bottles in nets piled with bamboo, plywood and sand. The island included beaches, a house, a solar oven and the composting toilet. When that island was destroyed by hurricane in 2005, Richard Sowa set about building another one. The new Spiral Island includes a couple of ponds, a solar panel and a solar powered waterfall. Many others are now building their own islands from plastic bottles and other materials

4. Make art and craft

For some reason plastic water bottles are great for artistic endeavours. Whether you choose to cut them up to make vases and plant pots, use the ends of PET bottles to makes pseudo flowers or do larger exhibitions and installations, reusing plastic bottles is a wonderful way to make an eco-artistic statement.

image courtesy of www.dailygood.org