Condor Cafe cares for the coffee beans and the people every step of the way.
From the farm to your hands, Condor Cafe is there at every step. We are there in the farms with the coffee farmers, ensuring the health and happiness of the plants and people. Ensuring best practices and dignified wages for the farmers. We are there in the selection process to make sure only the best beans make it through, and that all testing is done thoroughly. There are no middle men with Condor Cafe, just family and community all the way through. Below you can read about the current Condor Cafe processes.
1. Coffee Cherry Harvest
Twice a year the coffee farmers hand pick coffee cherries from their trees. They only select cherries that are at optimal ripeness; either red, yellow or even purple depending on the variety. Selective harvesting is crucial for good flavor and quality of the final product. Great coffee truly starts at the farm.
2. Depulping the Coffee Bean
Within 24 hours of harvest, the flesh of the fruit will be removed from the coffee bean. Almost every Colombian coffee farm has an antique depulping machine that has been passed down for generations. Although simple machines, they require experience to use properly to not damage the coffee beans.
3. Fermenting the Mucilage
At this stage the beans still have a thick sugary coating that needs to be removed, this is called the mucilage. The beans are then put into fermenting tanks where bacteria eats away at the mucilage. Fermenting time depends on the type of coffee desired and can range from 25-100 hours.
4. Washing
After the fermentation the sugar is almost gone and the mucilage is much softer. The beans are then put into washing tanks to remove any left over residues and sugars. Our beans are washed at least 3 times to ensure a very clean bean.
5. Drying
The beans are immediately put out for drying after washing. The coffee is spread out on large beds of concrete or wood, and special rakes are used to shuffle the beans around 10 times a day until they are completely dried by the sun. Our coffee is always sun dried. Other methods of drying can cause undesired flavors, like carbon.
6. Onsite Analysis
Before taking the beans away from the farm we run tests on the beans to make sure there are no problems in the farm processes. This includes testing for humidity, inspections for mold, bean damage from equipment or problems with insects. After all tests are passed we move the lot to our processing facility.
7. Threshing the Parchment
The purpose of threshing is to remove the husk of the bean from the coffee. A specialized machine is required for this. This husk is called parchment, and can be used to make many different products or used as fuel in cooking.
8. Green Coffee Monitoring
The green coffee beans are then sent through a monitoring machine that separates the beans by size. Condor Cafe only accepts beans that are 17mm or larger. This is one keystone in specialty coffee, as lower grade coffee can contain 15mm or even smaller beans.
9. Hand Selection
Hand selecting our coffee beans really sets Condor Cafe apart from the rest. We go through every bean by hand and remove bad beans. There are many causes and types of bad beans, but we make sure none of them make it into our coffee. This step is very labor intensive but takes our coffee from being specialty, to being a truly premium product. We promise you will taste the difference because of this step.
10. Cupping and Physical Tests
The fully processed coffee beans now make their way to the lab. Here the physical health of the coffee beans are examined more completely using lab equipment. The beans also get roasted with a sampling machine and a certified cupper rates the coffee's profile, giving a points grading and determines its flavors and aromas.
11. Storage and Distribution
All of Condor Cafe is stored in air tight food grade containers to maintain freshness. Condor Cafe will always be fresher than beans found with the big national distributors, and all of our distribution is handled by Condor Cafe. From the farm all the way to your hands, Condor Cafe is there the entire time and you will taste the difference.