Some coffee photos after a long hiatus

 This post comprises some photos from the early phases of my 2022 coffee production activity -- the first coffee harvest and production since Michele's death. It was our first shared blog, cheekily named after Michele's middle name, Joy -- a name she often complained about being given; yet a name that encompasses magnificently the way she approached life. And Joypix was intended to serve as a kind of personal record for us, in photos, of some the joyous moments we experienced together.

We did not post to it from the time Michele was diagnosed, almost all of which time coincided with the Covid 19 pandemic. During that period, up until almost the very end, we captured trips we made, walks we did, and the time we spent together using the small "faux Polaroid" Fuji camera Michele gave me three Christmasses ago. We filled a small album and got into a second in the time we had -- photos too poignant and personal to publish. Although with one exception, which I will post when I muster the wherewithal to do it, in all its tragic wonder and beauty: the trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water creation -- the only item Michele had on her bucket list

After making that post I will have to decide whether to continue with Joypix -- there are things Michele and I planned to do, which we could not do, like some road trips in Matilda. I may very well do some of these, in which case Michele's spirit will certainly accompany me. And I think it would be OK to post any photos that might be taken on the road.

For now, one thing I do know is that the coffee was always a highlight of Michele's year. She would come down to Mexico for a month and immerse herself as fully and frenetically as she could -- the Mexican life that remained to her after she went to live in the US to have her academic career. And the coffee harvest was always a central part of that. So, for now, here are some records of where the 2022 production has got to thus far: to the first pick of beans drying on the roof.

The sequence moves from beans on the plant, to some of the pickers picking, to the pickers having lunch in the shade of palm trees near to a small garden plot, to the process of using a hand-cranked "despulpadora" to get the skin off the beans, to the process of leaving the beans in a tub of water for 48 hours to remove the slime so they will dry more quickly ("fermenacion"), to setting the beans out to dry under cover up on the roof of the house.

 

Subsequent phases, for later in the year, will include rough husking the dry beans using a bench top hand cranked grinder, and then finishing the husking of the beans using a small electric "morteador", and after that roasting the beans, grinding the beans and, finally, bagging them.