Eat the cherries. Toss the pits. The bright red cherries of ripe coffee berries are tossed. The pits are toasted. Here in Xalapa, Coatepec and Xico it is coffee berry harvesting season.

The hills are alive with folks bearing buckets, baskets and bags of bright red plump coffee berries stripped from the vines of hundreds of thousands of coffee plants. A couple days after picking the beautiful red pulp will be stripped away and used for little more than fertilizer. The pit on the other hand or the seed or the bean will be toasted to coffee perfection.

These days on our roads we see many stake bed trucks with pickers packed like so many sardines. They are returning from the coffee plant fincas dotting our country side. Burros, mules and horses are packing sacks of red coffee berries. Driving by the numerous large coffee Beneficios (coffee processing plants) you can smell the rich acrid aroma of coffee in the air.

Our local friends in the Hood at Ursulo Galvan will not be found in the day time now as they are out on their small fincas “cutting coffee”; removing berries from vines.

It is a season of robust activity.

Side-walks, roof tops, patios, and cement drying decks of all kinds are heavy laden with golden coffee beans basking in 80 F (26.5 C) degree sunny warmth. A year ago we did a series of Blog entries on the coffee process from vine to cup.

Finished coffee is in short supply right now as last season’s beans are long gone and first crop is just getting into processing. It was high time for us to begin the search for good roasted beans as our supply had reached an untimely end. But good luck and the warmth of new friends brought us north and east to Coatepec where fine roasted Robusta and Arabica beans abound.

We had lunch at a 20 acre coffee plantation that included a tour of the facilities and grounds. Our host is an extranjero (foreigner) who has been in Mexico more than 20 years by way of New York City.  His sun filled casa had stacks of 57 kilogram quintals (bags) of golden coffee beans waiting to be roasted to a dark brown.

Toasted beans were actually in short supply as a delivery had just been made. But, the two couples that came over from Xico each left with a six-month stash of dark roasted Grade A coffee beans – life is good!

There are plenty of pictures within the pages of this Blog of coffee in all stages of its growth, harvest, processing and liquid state. But, I wanted to share with you some beans in a rather unique state. As everyone was hustling about the kitchen where our host and the two mujers (women) of our foursome were preparing lunch I spied on the marble counter this:

On close examination you can see that a kilo or so of dark roasted beans is the ‘potted earth’ for the lovely colorful dried stalks in the crystal vase. A clever artful display – however unless you own a coffee plantation you might imagine the temptation to seize the ‘earth’ of that lovely display when your coffee supply has run out.

We live in coffee country where roasted beans become charm bracelets, necklaces, key chain bobs, folk art and even potting soil in crystal vases. I just plunged down the grounds of a dark roast in the French press – coffee time. 

Stay Tuned!