Tuesday, January 06, 2009
A little coffee picking, Coatepec style
Gabriel very kindly arranged for some local pickers to pick for two days to complete the first full pick of this year's bumper harvest. We are hoping the same pickers will be able to come back in another month or so and do the second pick which, at this stage, looks as though it will be larger than the first. We will just sell the second pick, however, because we have already got all and more than we will be able to process comfortably from the first pick. As a subsequent post will affirm, the roof of the house is already fast being covered by coffee beans that are drying in readiness for husking. If the weather stays good there might even be a first roast happening by this weekend. None too soon. Last year's mix is by now tasting rather familiar. Good, but familiar. With luck there'll be enough this year to do a real variety of roastings, from light to very dark.
Meanwhile, here is a short sequence of family style coffee picking. A very social scene.
At the end of the day the sun was practically down and the half moon was in full view as the various bags (lonas) of picked coffee were being prepared for weighing and our share of the spoils was being separated out and dropped into the back of Midnight for ferrying home. We witnessed a lovely impromptu language lesson involving the wee boy who appears in the video, as the women took him between "lona" (the bags) and "luna" (the moon visible in the sky).
The days are so rich just now. Going back to paid work is going to be even harder this year than last. And we all know how hard *that* was, don't we? Eeep. Scary thought.
