Dry processed coffee can save water. When water is used in coffee processing there is also the question of its affect on the environment when released. Coopchebi is working on solutions that fit for them, and the surrounding area.

This is fruit dried coffee on African Beds, also called Parijuelas. I am confident I misspelled that. These beds are located at the mill just down from where many of the member farms sit.

“We are adding two hectares of African Beds located up higher on the hill. We will process all of our coffees dry, after we have added capacity.”

These Coop members are posing in front of rows of drying beds located up on the hill, surrounded by the coffee trees. This dry processing project is under way, but still in progress. Its alot of work to get a decent coffee ready for purchase!

In our cupping with Coopchebi we tried fruit dried, parchment dried and washed coffees all with a distinct big body. It is possible that specializing can be a good thing, in that so many of the fruit dried coffees we cupped prior to Coopchebi displayed imperfections sometimes associated with Fruit dried (also called natural) coffees.

This is mucilage dried coffee (also called honey processed). The skin is removed, but an amount of the mucilage is left clinging to the parchment as the coffee dries. Coffee in this state makes me crave candied nuts! Doesn’t it look tasty?

Coopchebi has 190 members, who together control 1200 hectares of farm land and 300 hectares of reserve. It is important to preserve the forests that are home to these lovely coffees. Artificial monocultures destroy ecosystems, but incorporating reserve land with farms provides vital biological diversity. I think it also makes things taste better.

I can personally attest that one of the Coopchebi farms was the loudest forest I have ever tried to have a conversation in. The bugs and birds and who-knows-what-that-was sounds were epic. All the visitors made haste out of there as the sun got low. Biodiversity is a good thing until the sun starts setting.

Back at the mill, the guys were kind enough to turn on some of the equipment to show us how they worked. I have to share this really cool stirring machine. In all phases of processing keeping moisture and temperature even is important. look at this cool little beast!

These little guys turn, rotating the coffee at the bottom to the top. The structure they are mounted on rolls back and forth slowly, so that the whole pile is continually turning. I love cool, and simple machines. This is both

The partners at Coopchebi radiated good vibes. This week their coffees are on our cupping table as we stress and strain over our buying choices. There are many times in a roasting company office where we throw around ideas about how to sell a coffee, just so that we can get the opportunity to buy it. I expect to have more than one meet going over whether we have sufficient sales volume to bring this coffee in. Our sales manager will say, “well if we get ****** account we will probably need it.”

I cannot express how fun it is to find great people with great coffee. We want to show them all to our customers . I’m working on bringing Coopchebi to you! Im in a phase where Swell Coffees is just to small for all the things we want to share! I have to go do some sales follow up calls right now!