Coffee Time in the Comarca

Our backyard coffee-making was a great learning experience as we were taught by our host-family to peel, roast, prepare, grind and drink (which we already had a good handle on) the beans from fruit to smile.

After drying the red fruit in the sun for days, you soak it until you're left with only a bean, and pick out all of the sticks and bugs

You then roast the beans (in a roaster if you like, over a fire if you're living in the jungle) until their thin, crispy outer covering starts to come off like a loose paper shell.

Amanda, stirring it up like Bob Marley!

After the shell loosens, you pound the beans with a medieval jousting-looking device (this may be a westernized, non-traditional name for it, but I'm not sure) until all of the shells are loosened and flying through the air.

Once done pounding the beans, we layed them out on a tray-like device to begin seperating the good stuff from the bad (that is, the inner bean from its outer shell)

Felix, our community counter-part and host dad, using a shaking technique to sperate the light, airy outer shells from the inside bean. As you can tell by now, this process is integral to the whole coffee-making process and involves many intermediary steps to arrive at a point of completion.

Back into the fire, as the roasting of the beans, and their associated aroma, begins!

Getting warmer! (and better smelling!)

After about a half-hour of roatsing over a fire, the bean are done, and need to be cooled for about twenty minutes or so.

Amanda, grinding the beans into a "Comarca" consistency. While not as fine as an espresso grind, or any other commercial grind for that matter, it is good enough to dump into hot water for a tasty brew.

Finally, and with smiles on our faces, we enjoy what we worked so hard to make over that last two hours! Bottoms up!