Processing Coffee

American Invention

Processing Coffee The Easy Way

PROCESSING coffee beans for market is likely to be made easier by a simple and recent American invention.

It is called a Cafepro and was developed by two US Government officials, Merriam A. Jones and Edgar de L. Davies, while engaged in Guatemala in an agricultural co operation project.

They have given the invention to the US Government free of Royalty fees and, it would appear, free to whoever cares to follow the plans and build one for themselves.

PIM has written to the State De partment for fuller details.

Meanwhile the device and its functions are described as follows: The Cafepro simplifies the pro cess of separating the coffee berry’s outer pulp or mucilage from the inner beans by eliminating a long fermentation period. Under present methods, the berry’s skin is removed by a pulping machine and the mucilage is left to ferment 15 to 50 hours in concrete bins.

The beans are then dried in the sun or in a dryer. Apart from the time factor, there is a danger of over-fermentation which can ruin the beans, since there is no way to separate the partially ripe beans and the overweight and underweight beans, all of which require different fermentation periods.

The Cafepro is a mounted an compartmented trough in which 8 alkaline solution of wood-ash an. lime is used. After three minutl of washing in this, the beans com out clean and clear of mucilag Weight loss is three to six per cen less with the Cafepro than with tld fermentation process—an importa/E

Dint where payment is by weight.

The statement says that Cafepros. lass-produced in the US, would >st about 120 to 171 dollars !A67 to £A7B) each. Many, in vidually built, are already in use Id have cost about twice the above jure.

It is expected that the Cafepros U be mass-produced for the Latin herican countries with which the fe has technical co-operation pro timmes.

Forld Coffee Production

Will Rise In 1955

t RECENT United States Depart |l ment of Agriculture Bulletin f gives the figures on world coffee bduction in 1954 as compared with b previous year. The figures for irld exports are, of course, short world production by the amounts nsumed in the producer countries.

Quantities given are in bags, each 60 kilos or 132 lb. —See table, top :ht. decline in total exports was at buted to consumer resistance to ;h prices. South America’s high ced coffees were worst hit, con ners turning to the lower priced fees from other areas which lefitted accordingly. [he US Department of Agricul e estimates world output in 1955at a record level of not less than million bags—ll per cent, above t year, and 8 per cent, above irage pre-war level.

Sstimates include: Brazil, 21 Hion bags; Colombia, 7.2 million; xico, 1.75 million; French West •ica, 1.62 million, El Salvador. 1.1 [lion; Guatemela 1.1 million, and lonesia, 1.08 million bags, ii Uganda the season opened this ir with a Government guaranteed ce of 1/3 per lb for unhulled usta, but after £4,500,000 had been iwn from the Coffee Price Assist ;e Fund to meet payments fol ring a drop in world prices, the vernment was forced to reduce guarantee to 9d per lb, which low being paid.

'he Uganda crop this year is imated to reach 63,500 tons, all \ 7,000 tons of which will be ive produced.

Colombia has concluded a series big coffee barter deals in recent nths. These include six 7,500ships, four to be built in Ger ny and two in Spain. Germany 1 also exchange coffee for a fleet buses. Belgium will give barbed e and agricultural implements: tain, fertilisers: Switzerland, elec > machinery. tolombia, which exported 5.7 lion bags last year, is making an •out drive against a parasite, the L& ga ant, which has done serious oage in certain areas this year. 2 ant strips every leaf from the

i, killing it.

f The marriage of Mrs. May Shields to Mr. Don Mackenzie will take place at the Church of England, Madang, New Guinea, on December 24, 1955. Mrs. Shields is a pre-war Territorial!, and daughter of Mrs.

Lucy Brodie, who also is well-known u 1 6 rs - Shields first husband died in Madang in 1951; there are two small children of that marriage. After the wedding, on December 24, a reception will be given the newly married pair by

Mr. and Mrs. J. Gilmore of the Madang Hotel, : a new central radio communica tions station building has been erected alongside the disused air strip a t Betio Islet, Tarawa.

Contact with the outside world should be improved from the new site, with its four 60 ft. aerial towers well clear of screening from coconut palms. The new station should be operating early in 1956.

Where The World’S Coffee Is Produced

Total World Production (in bags) .. .. 34,7(M) 3 000 29,100 000 South American total 23,400,000 17,500^000 African total .. . 5,400,000 5,750,000 North American total 5.200,000 4 800 000 Asia-Oceania total 688,000 948!()00