Visiting Farmers in Iganga & Bukomansimbi with Cafe Africa

Hi Everyone! 

We wanted to share some of pictures from our recent trip to Iganga and Bukomansimbi with Cafe Africa. 

Cafe Africa is a non-profit organization who realizes that with 'the increasing global coffee demand and Africa's production potential, there is an opportunity to address the issues of declining export volumes of coffee.'  

We visited the company in the field as they showed us their practical approach to training both extension workers and farmers. We were very impressed by the confidence level and positive feedback from the farmers. 

We will share their training secrets in Vlog #004, in the mean time, enjoy the pictures! 

Coffee Tree

Close up of (unripe) cherries and flowers 

Picking the ripe cherries off

Showing us how to 'pick' ripe cherries rather than 'stripping' all cherries 

The next step is either dry or wet processing of the cherry:

Method 1: Drying (lower quality) 

Drying all the red cherries. Most of the bad cherries (unripe, too ripe, broken, infected) are picked out by hand, due to human error many bad cherries are left.

Cherries will be left to dry until they become black and a certain moisture content is reached (around 13%). These are then ready to be processed at a mill. This method is common for Robusta. 

Method 2: Wet Processing (higher quality) 

Red Cherries are put in a basin and washed, this causes all bad cherries to float the top. This is one of the reasons why wet processing is better in terms of the quality of coffee.

Pulping machine which processes the wet cherries, the skin (husk) is removed. This method is usual for Arabica and only sometimes used for Robusta.

Coffee bean that remains once the skin is removed. Either through the pulp machines or the dry mills.

On the Field: 

Practical irrigation technique for coffee seedlings and young trees

Interviewing the Farmers 

See you at Vlog #004! 

Ludivine & 

Tommie