| Kona Coffee
Pickin' and Processing
A Letter From
Hawaii
My husband was a fisherman and
we were going broke…
We had a place on "Ackerman Hill" with a couple acres of
coffee that hadn't been worked for thirty years. We leased the
land essentially for the house. Plantation style in the
islands usually translates to single-wall construction and a
tin roof. The loo is "out there" and the shower is over there…
I look at the abandoned coffee trees on the farm—I
know the coffee cherries mean money. I call the landlord and
ask if I can pick the coffee if I pay a percentage to him.
He says, “No need to pay him. The coffee has been abandoned
for thirty years”.
The old Filipino farmer up the hill lends me a basket and
makes a coffee stick for me. After I sell my first coffee this
same farmer takes me to Al's farm and garden and shows my what
size wire mesh to buy. I buy enough for three baskets and the
canvas for straps etc. At home I sit on my lanai and make
three coffee baskets—one
for each person in the family. In one month I make $400—(in
1979, that is a huge increase in income) all legal cash crops.
A coffee basket is a half round basket, (I later make my own
out of wire), with a belt that goes across my lower back. The
stick is a branch off the guava tree with a hook on one end
and the other is a makeshift stirrup. I hook the branch and
pull it down then put my foot in the stirrup to hold it in
place while I use both hands to pick the cherry. When my
basket is heavy enough I pour the contents into a coffee bag
which usually holds 100lbs. of cherry. I quickly learn to
station the bag close to shelter so I can move it when the
rains come in the afternoon. Kona roasters do not buy
fermented coffee and it will ferment quickly if the bag gets
wet.
So, here I go out the door in my gum boots and old painter
pants, a long-sleeved shirt and a baseball cap on my head. The
cap keeps the debris and spiders out of my hair, and the
long-sleeved shirt protects me from the bugs. I have my basket
and stick and a jug of water…no need to bring any food—the
avocados are there for the picking. We have several groves of
them on Ackerman’s Ranch.
My dog is happy—(oh
boy, I can go outside the fence—maybe
find pig stuff to roll in—o'boy
o'boy, tail wagging). My cats and chickens follow along and
bum by, the neighbor’s dog shows up. Sometimes the Greenwells
are grazing the cattle and an occasional cow wanders by.
I pick until it's break time—then
maybe find a ripe avocado and sit a spell. I measure the bag
and decide how much more it will take to top it off and sew it
up. I sew the bag shut to protect against spillage. When the
bag or bags are full I haul them to the pick up point and then
off to market I go. I usually sell mine to Bong Brothers—they
are fair and pay cash and I like these boys from Berkeley.
They look like they fell out of the pages of Furry Freddy and
the Fabulous Freak Brothers. Good hearted guys who appreciate
clean cherry.
After picking, the coffee cherries go through a pulpier to
extract the outer skin, then they are sun-dried with almost
hourly raking to encourage even drying. The inner sac becomes
chaff and separates from what is now a green bean. During the
drying process the cherries have to be watched so that they
can be covered with the rain comes. After the drying process
is finished the bean is then ready to roast. All of this is
pretty much Hand Labor. That is the "tech" stuff.
The rest is the romance and labor—the
camaraderie when friends came to pick with me and the solitude
and communion when I am out there by myself with the sky and
trees. I am never really alone—all
the nature spirits are present, and for me, all my animals.
Good times. Aloha Tracy
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