A tall skinny latte, please...this time leave out the flavoring

When I went to coffee shops in the states, I always liked to try new things. I almost never would order the same thing twice, unless I really, really liked something. I supposed that is just part of my personality. I love trying new things. That's one reason why I'm down here in Honduras!

As most of you know, coffee is made of small beans, almost the size of a black bean, which is roasted and then ground into grains, which make a delicious drink. What most of you probably didn't know is that the coffee beans originally grow on trees in small berries that are the shape of blueberries, except that they turn red when ripe. And after being picked, they have a looooong ways to go before they are turned into the wonderful caffienated drink that we know and love!

First, they have to go through a maching that takes off the red outer shell. At this point, they look more like coffee beans than berries. After the shell has been taken off, they usually have to sit out for at least a day, in order to get rid of a filmy outer covering that is left on after the shell is taken off. They are then washed with clean water. During this process, the ¨bad beans¨are taken out. Usually the ones that have some of the outer shell still left on them, or do not have a bean inside the shell. These are separated, and consumed by the locals (which is why, when one goes to a coffee paradise like this where coffee is all around them, it is almost impossible to find GOOD coffee, because all the good stuff is exported, and the locals are left with the garbage). Then, the coffee is left out to dry for hours, sometimes days and days, depending on the strength of the sun. I found out while working here, that drying coffee is an art. There is a certain percentage of humidity that the coffee bean has to have, no more, no less, in order to be considered good. If it is too humid, it can have a sickly bitter taste to it. If it is too dry, it gets bland and flavorless.

The next part is the most simple, but possibly the most grueling. The coffee must be selected. The bad ones separated from the good ones. I have spent literally hours and hours separating coffee with the workers at the house I live in, only having separated about 50 pounds of coffee (about a 20th of the amount of coffee some people have) this is the most grueling, but also the most important, because the company they export their coffee to charges them for every defect the coffee has. For instance, for every 10 coffee beans they find that are black (they should be a pretty golden color), that is one defect and they get deducted the amount they get paid.

After all this is done, the coffee is brought to a warehouse, or in our case, the cooperative office, to be stored before being shipped off. This is the process we are in right now. There are 53 members in the cooperative. That means 53 different people have been coming to the cooperative ¨office¨ to drop off their coffee, weigh it, store it, and have it shipped off to the other side of the country to have it processed so it can be exported. That's right, there is still one more step to go before it can be exported. The coffee beans at this point are still in another outer shell, which needs to be stripped with another, more complicated machine that is hard to find. That is why they have to transport their coffee to have it processed and exported by a larger company.

All this work, just for one simple cup of coffee. Not to mention that all this still needs to be roasted and ground in order to make the drink! It just makes me wonder who the heck saw a bunch of red berries on a tree, and thought to himself ¨hmmm....I think I'll take the shell off of those berries, dry them in the sun, take of the other shell, roast it, ground it, and then make a drink out of it! Oh, yes, that would be delicious!¨