Coffee from Scratch

A sweet perfume permeates our yard in the evenings. The coffee trees that crowd around our well and chicken coops are in full bloom. The smell is strikingly similar to honey suckle. Interestingly, even though the trees are flowering they also sport a ripe crop of coffee cherries at the same time. It’s very strange how seasons for fruit work here in the tropics. Ever since moving into our home I have been eyeing the coffee trees and wondering when I should try to make homemade coffee from scratch.

Fruit and Flowers

Last weekend began the adventure. Standing atop the well cover I managed to harvest a large pot of the red coffee cherries. I then added water to the batch and agitated the mixture with a stick of wood throughout the day. The cherries then loosened their hold on the precious green beans stored within each fruit.

Pot O'Cherries

The next step was slightly tedious, slimy and used quite a bit of water. Coffee beans sink in water and thankfully the fruit floats making for easy separation. Once the green beans were separated I dried them for two days until the seed coat was brittle.

Tedious Processing

Then came another tedious process to shell each seed. To speed up the procedure I used a large mortar and pestle to crush the seed coat then, by rubbing the seeds, the bean would finally emerge. It would be neat to see all the machines that do all this busy work…but there is something rewarding doing it all by hand. After all this processing the large pot of cherries had yielded only one small peanut butter jar of beans!

Finally the roasting could commence. Our cast iron pan worked wonders and after much stirring produced a batch of aromatic black/brown roasted coffee beans. This unique roast is one of a kind and will probably never be perfectly replicated…thus I dub it the “Tha Thom Roast.” I then use the crucible and pestle once more to achieve a fine grind from the freshly roasted beans.

'Tha Thom Roast'

The final step before a hot mug is the brewing. Since we don’t have a coffee pot…a stove pot suffices…simply add coffee grounds and boil! There is certainly something to be said about freshly made coffee. Probably can’t get fresher than this since the cherries were still on the tree a week ago! The flavor is slightly bitter with a zingy aftertaste…and a coffee aroma that makes the mouth water for more.

From Flower to Cup