Coffee Plantation

Hi to all my family and friends,

Friday brought us to a tour of a coffee plant and plantation.  

We traveled about an hour to an actual plantation itself.  What a beautiful, quiet place, deep in the forest.  The plantation is owned and run by a gentleman and his son. They typically do not give tours, but did just for us.  He also allowed us to tour his beautiful home which was a huge plantation house and served us some of their very own coffee, truly delicious.  The plantation sat on 40 acres where they grow mostly Arabica and Robusta coffee, but also some oranges, and to make use of space, peppercorns as well.  Peppercorns grow on vines up the sides of the trees in little pods.  Coffee takes about 10 months to grow from flowering to harvest.  All the harvesting at this particular plantation is done by hand.  We were able to observe the harvesting in progress and try it ourselves.  The beans (or cherries) are removed from the branches by twisting the beans off with your hands onto tarps laying under the coffee tree.  Once the beans are harvested, they are spread out onto concrete slabs for drying 15-20 days, stirring occasionally to ensure even drying.  It is then sent to the coffee plant.

The coffee plant is where the coffee cherries are hulled by machines or by hand to remove any extra parchment or pulp. It is then sorted by grade and bagged in gunny sacks to be sold to the coffee buyers. 

This plantation did not sell any coffee, but we were able to buy some coffee and spices grown in this region on our way back into town.  

After a long bus ride, we are now in Bangalore.  A full afternoon is planned with a walking tour of old town Bangalore which should prove very interesting, before we start our long journey home late tonight.   I hope to post one more time when I arrive home.

Until then....love to all!

Linda

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