All About Coffee Part 50

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREPARING COLOMBIAN COFFEE FOR THE MARKET]

VENEZUELA. Venezuela employs both the dry and the wet methods of preparation, producing both "washed" and "commons" and also, like Colombia, has a large part of the coffee cleaned in the trading centers of the various coffee districts. Dry, or unwashed, coffees are known as _trillado_ (milled), and compose the bulk of the country's output.

Venezuela's plantation-working forces are largely natives of Indian descent and negroes, some of them coming during harvesting season from adjoining Colombia and returning there after the picking is done. The resident workers labor under a sort of peonage system which is tacitly recognized by both employee and employer, although no laws of peonage or slavery have ever existed in Venezuela. Under this system, the laborers live in little colonies scattered over the _haciendas_, as the coffee plantations are called in Venezuela. Company stores keep them supplied with all their wants. Modern plantation machinery is very scarce; the ancient method of hulling coffee in a circular trough where the dried berries are crushed by heavy wooden wheels drawn by oxen, is still a common sight in Venezuela. In preparing washed coffees, some planters ferment the pulped coffee under water (wet fermentation process); while others ferment without water (dry fermentation).

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIS OLD-FAs.h.i.+ONED HULLING MACHINE IS OPERATED BY OX POWER IN VENEZUELA]

The princ.i.p.al ports of s.h.i.+pments for Venezuela coffees are La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, and Maracaibo. Caracas, the capital, is five miles in an air line from the port of La Guaira; but in ascending the three thousand feet of alt.i.tude to the city the railroad twists and turns among the mountains for a distance of twenty-four miles. By rail or motor the trip is one of much charm and great beauty.

SALVADOR. The planters in Salvador favor the dry method of coffee preparation; and the bulk of the crop is natural, or unwashed.

GUATEMALA. Most Guatemalas are prepared for market by the wet method.

The gathering of the crops furnishes employment for half the population.

German and American settlers have introduced the latest improvements in modern plantation machinery into Guatemala.

MEXICO. In Mexico coffee is harvested from November to January, and large quant.i.ties are prepared by both the dry and the wet methods, the latter being practised on the larger estates that have the necessary water supply and can afford the machinery. Here, too, one will find coffee being cleaned by the primitive hand-mortar and wind-winnowing method. Laborers are mostly half-breeds and Indians. Chinese coolies have been tried and found satisfactory, and some j.a.panese are utilized, though not largely.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STREET CAR COFFEE TRANSPORT IN ORIZABA, MEXICO]

HAITI. In Haiti the picking season is from November to March. In recent years better attention has been paid to cultural and preparation methods; and the product is more favorably regarded commercially. Large quant.i.ties are s.h.i.+pped to France and Belgium; and much of that sent to the United States is res.h.i.+pped to France, Belgium, and Germany, where it is sorted by hand. Both dry and wet methods are employed in Haiti.

PORTO RICO. Here planters favor the wet method of coffee preparation.

The crop is gathered from August to December. The coffees are graded as _caracollilo_ (peaberry), _primero_ (hand-picked), _segundo_ (second grade), _trillo_ (low grade).

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE ON THE DRYING FLOORS IN PORTO RICO]

NICARAGUA. The wet method of coffee preparation is mostly favored in Nicaragua. Many of the large plantations are worked by colonies of Americans and Germans who are competent to apply the abundant natural water power of the country to the operation of modern coffee cleaning machinery.

COSTA RICA. Costa Rica was one of the first countries of the western world to use coffee cleaning machinery. Marcus Mason, an American mechanical engineer then managing an iron foundry in Costa Rica, invented three machines that would respectively peel off the husk, remove the parchment and pulp, and winnow the light refuse from the beans.

The inventor gave his original demonstration to the planters of San Jose in 1860, and duplicates were installed on all the large plantations. In the course of the next thirty years, Mason brought out other machines until he had developed a complete line that was largely used on coffee plantations in all parts of the world.

_In the Eastern Hemisphere_

Modern cleaning machinery and methods of preparation are employed to some extent in the large coffee-producing countries of the eastern hemisphere, and do not differ materially from those of the western.

ARABIA. In Arabia the fruit ripens in August or September, and picking continues from then until the last fruits ripen late in the March following. The cherries, as they are picked, are left to dry in the sun on the house-top terrace or on a floor of beaten earth. When they have become partly dry, they are hulled between two small stones, one of which is stationary, while the other is worked by the hand power of two men who rotate it quickly. Further drying of the hulled berry follows.

It is then put into bags of closely woven aloe fiber, lined with matting made of palm leaves. It is next sent to the local market at the foot of the mountain. There, on regular market days, the Turkish or Arabian merchants, or their representatives, buy and dispatch their purchases by camel train to Hodeida or Aden. The princ.i.p.al primary market in recent years has been the city of Beit-el-Fakih.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAKING COFFEE ON DRYING FLOORS--CHUVA DISTRICT, GUATEMALA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE DRYING PATIOS, HACIENDA LONGA-ESPANA, VENEZUELA]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUN-DRYING COFFEE AMID SCENES OF RARE TROPICAL BEAUTY]

In Aden and Hodeida the bean is submitted to further cleaning by the princ.i.p.al foreign export houses to whom it has come from the mountains in rather dirty condition. Indian women are the sole laborers employed in these cleaning houses. First, the coffee beans are separated from the dry empty husks by tossing the whole into the air from bamboo trays, the workers deftly permitting the husks to fly off while the beans are caught again in the tray. The beans are then surface-cleaned by pa.s.sing them gently between two very primitive grindstones worked by men. A third process is the complete clearing of the bean from the silver skin, and it is then ready for the final hand picking. Women are called into service again, and they pick out the refuse husks, quaker or black, beans, green or immature beans, white beans, and broken beans, leaving the good beans to be weighed and packed for s.h.i.+pment. The cleaned beans are known as _bun safi_; the husks become _kisher_. Some of the poorer beans also are sold, princ.i.p.ally to France and to Egypt. Hand-power machinery is used to a slight extent; but mostly the old-fas.h.i.+oned methods hold sway.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DRYING PATIO ON A COSTA RICA ESTATE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by R.C. Wilhelm.

EARLY GUARDIOLA STEAM DRIER, "EL CANIDA" PLANTATION, COSTA RICA]

The Yemen, or Arabian, bale, or package, is unique. It is made up of two fiber wrappers, one inside the other. The inside one is called _attal_ or _darouf_. It is made from cut and plaited leaves of _nakhel douin_ or _narghil_, a species of palm. The outer covering, called _garair_, is a sack made of woven aloe fiber. The Bedouins weave these covers and bring them to the export merchants at Aden and Hodeida. A Mocha bundle contains one, two, or four fiber packages, or bales. When the bundle contains one bale it is known as a half; when it contains two it is known as quarters; and when it contains four it is known as eighths.

Arabian coffee for Boston used to be packed in quarters only; for San Francisco and New York, in quarters and eighths. The longberry Abyssinian coffees were formerly packed in quarters only. Since the World War, however, there has been a scarcity of packing materials, and packing in quarters and eighths has stopped. Now, all Mocha, as well as Harar, coffee comes in halfs. A half weighs eighty kilos, or 176 pounds, net--although a few exporters s.h.i.+p "halfs" of 160 pounds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN WOMEN CLEANING MOCHA COFFEE IN AN ADEN WAREHOUSE

There are four processes in cleaning Mocha coffee. In order to separate the dried beans from the broken hulls these women (brought over from India) toss the beans in the air, very deftly permitting the empty hulls to fly off, and catch the coffee beans on the bamboo trays. Then the coffee is pa.s.sed between two primitive grindstones, turned by men. After this grinding process the beans are separated from the crushed outside hulls and the loose silver skins. In the fourth process the Indian women pick out by hand the remaining husks, the quakers, the immature beans, the white beans and the broken beans. Being Mohammedans, their religion does not permit such little vanities as picture posing, which explains why their faces are covered and turned away from the camera.]

ABYSSINIA. Little machinery is used in the preparation of coffee in Abyssinia; none, in preparing the coffee known as Abyssinian, which is the product of wild trees; and only in a few instances in cleaning the Harari coffee, the fruit of cultivated trees. Both cla.s.ses are raised mostly by natives, who adhere to the old-time dry method of cleaning. In Harar, the coffee is sometimes hulled in a wooden mortar; but for the most part it is sent to the brokers in parchment, and cleaned by primitive hand methods after its arrival in the trading centers.

ANGOLA. In Angola the coffee harvest begins in June, and it is often necessary for the government to lend native soldiers to the planters to aid in harvesting, as the labor supply is insufficient. After picking, the beans are dried in the sun from fourteen to forty days, depending upon the weather. After drying, they are brought to the hulling and winnowing machines. There are now about twenty-four of these machines in the Cazengo and Golungo districts, all manufactured in the United States and giving satisfactory results. They are operated by natives.

A condition adversely affecting the trade has been the low price that Angola coffee commands in European markets. The cost of production per _arroba_ (thirty-three pounds) on the Cazengo plantations is $1.23, while Lisbon market quotations average $1.50, leaving only twenty-seven cents for railway transport to Loanda and ocean freight to Lisbon. It has been unprofitable to s.h.i.+p to other markets on account of the preferential export duties. A part of the product is now s.h.i.+pped to Hamburg, where it is known as the Cazengo brand. Next to Mocha, the Cazengo coffee is the smallest bean that is to be found in the European markets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLEANING AND GRADING COFFEE BY MACHINERY IN ADEN]

JAVA AND SUMATRA. The coffee industry in Java and Sumatra, as well as in the other coffee-producing regions of the Dutch East Indies, was begun and fostered under the paternal care of the Dutch government; and for that reason, machine-cleaning has always been a noteworthy factor in the marketing of these coffees. Since the government relinquished its control over the so-called government estates, European operators have maintained the standard of preparation, and have adopted new equipment as it was developed. The majority of estates producing considerable quant.i.ties of coffee use the same types of machinery as their compet.i.tors in Brazil and other western countries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRYING COFFEE IN THE SUN AT THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, HARAR, ABYSSINIA]

In Java, free labor is generally employed; while on the east coast of Sumatra the work is done by contract, the workers usually being bound for three years. In both islands the laborers are mostly Javanese coolies.

Under the contract system, the worker is subject to laws that compel him to work, and prevent him from leaving the estate until the contract period expires. Under the free-labor system, the laborer works as his whims dictate. This forces the estate manager to cater to his workers, and to build up an organization that will hold together.

As an example of the working of the latter system, this outline--by John A. Fowler, United States trade commissioner--of the organization of a leading estate in Java will indicate the general practise in vogue:

The manager of this estate has had full control for twenty years and knows the "adat" (tribal customs) of his people and the individual peculiarities of the leaders. This estate has been described as having one of the most perfect estate organizations in Java. It consists of two divisions of 3,449 bouws (about 6,048 acres in all), of which 2,500 bouws are in rubber and coffee and 550 in sisal; the remainder includes rice fields, timber, nurseries, bamboo, teak, pastures, villages, roads, ca.n.a.ls, etc.

The foreign staff is under the supervision of a general manager, and consists of the following personnel: A chief garden a.s.sistant of section 1, who has under him four section a.s.sistants and a native staff; a chief garden a.s.sistant of section 2, who has under him three section a.s.sistants, an apprentice a.s.sistant, and a native staff; a chief factory a.s.sistant, who has under him an a.s.sistant machinist, an apprentice a.s.sistant, and a native staff; and, finally, a bookkeeper. The term "garden" means the area under cultivation.

The bookkeeper, a man of mixed blood, handles all the general accounting, acc.u.mulating the reports sent in by the various a.s.sistants. The two chief garden a.s.sistants are responsible to the manager for all work outside the factory except the construction of new buildings, which is in charge of the chief factory a.s.sistant.

The two divisions of the estate are subdivided into seven agricultural sections, each section being in full charge of an a.s.sistant. A section may include coffee, rubber, sisal, teak, bamboo, a coagulation station and nurseries. The a.s.sistant's duties include the supervision of road building and repairs, building repairs, transportation, paying the labor, and the supervision of section accounts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OPEN-AIR DRYING GROUNDS ON A WEST JAVA ESTATE

The beans are being turned by native Sudanese men and women]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF A MODERN COFFEE FACTORY IN EAST JAVA

Showing pulping machinery and fermentation tanks]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREPARING JAVA COFFEE FOR THE MARKET]

The factory includes a water-power plant delivering, through an American water wheel and by cable, 250 horse-power to the main shafting, an auxiliary steam plant of 150 horse-power as a reserve, a rubber mill, a coffee mill, three sisal-stripping machines, smoke-houses, drying fields and houses for sisal, drying floors and houses for coffee, sorting rooms, blacksmith shop, machine shop, bra.s.s-fitting foundry, packing houses, warehouses, and other equipment. The factory is in charge of a first a.s.sistant, who is a machinist, with a European staff consisting of a machinist and an apprentice a.s.sistant.

The chief garden a.s.sistant is paid 350 to 400 florins, and the garden a.s.sistants start at 200 florins per month, with graduated yearly increases up to 300 florins per month (florin=$0.40). The chief factory a.s.sistant receives 300 florins, and the machinist and bookkeeper 250 florins each.