Night time, the children are sleeping, somebody knocks on the door :
hello !!! your truck is extraordinary, nas so on...
5 minutes later, we are invited in the Arvind Narayan coffee plantation :
                            discovery of this new world !!!





Two kinds of coffe : arabica and robusta.
the two kinds grow in the hills, in the shade.
Arabica : the best, grow in small plants.
the shade will allow to make also the pepper growing
along the trees.
Older is the plants, more fruits grow,
less leaves grow.
Robusta : the "worst", grow on big trees.
they are picked after arabica.

  

To get a good crop, the first rains of March, before those of the moussoun,
must be important. The crop is from November to February.

  

The crop of a plant begins when one fruit become red.
The whole plant is croped, manualy, by workers.
A worker wins a base of 50 roupies a day (around 1€). He must crop 50 kg of fruits.
Every added kilo will gain 1 roupies. They make usually 60-80 kg per day. The best make 120 kg / day.
Each worker is responsible of his crop. He carries it, sorts it.

  

  

  

The sort will separate the good fruits from the less good fruits : several steps.
Separation of the red fruits (the best quality) from the greens.
The green are dried to get send to the factory.
The red are washed, then sort again on the weight criteria.
The good quality will get down, the less good will stay on the surface to go back with the green fruits.
Then the best fruits will go through two machines :
  the first one will put away the bark, the second the skin.
They are washed again, then dried to get send to the factory on their side.

  

  

  

The drying can begin... with the ballets.

  

  

  

  





The bags are sent to the factory...

  

The role of the factory is to sort the grains and to classify them by quality : It exists 3 machines.
  one put away the black grains by very fast optical sort
  one classify the grains by weight : the heaviest are the best
  one classify the grains by size : the biggest are the best

The grains do not smell anything at this stage !!! They are sold in this status.
The roasting will be made very near the selling point, the coffee being not stable.

The roasting is done by rollingthe grains in hot metal cylinders during 10 minutes.
The final aroma will come with apparition of oil on the grains.
                                                 Now, it's to you to taste...





        pepper growing along the tree giving the shade to the coffe


Arvind has reserved a part of his plantation for the banana culture...

  

  

Banana flowers and banana grappes
the grow is very fast... a few days is enough to get a banana tree and banana fruits.