HOW WE PRODUCE GREEN COFFEE?
Besides producing on our own, we collect fresh cherry from our neighboring farmers and bring it to our wet mill for further processing. We apply selective handpicking for well-ripened cherries, float them on the water to remove the low-dense, immature and other defective fresh cherries. The floaters will be separated for grade B and grade C beans (normally we call it broken beans) and the good cherries will be taken for hand-sorting again and then pulped. The next step will be the dry fermentation (most of the time on plastic barrels or bags) and it takes about 20 hours to get the right pH level (normally we keep ~4 pH). After drying on raised bed farm patios when the moisture level reaches 11% the dry parchment will be transported to Kathmandu where we do dry milling and grading. The screen size of our green coffee will be as follows:
OUT OF 1 KG GREEN COFFEE
RESTING & DRY MILLING OF PARCHMENT
GENERAL QUERIES ABOUT NEPAL COFFEE AND OUR COMPANY RELATED TO THIS TOPIC
Where is the main origin of Nepal coffee?
The coffee in Nepal has been spreading in over 40 districts of the hid hills of Nepal since the last few decades. Some of the major coffee-producing districts of Nepal are Kavre, Lalitpur, Gulmi, and Kaski. Most of the Nepalese coffees are graded as specialty Coffee for its distinct flavor aroma and body as it is grown in higher altitude, away from the main Coffee growing Capricorn and Cancer belt. Coffee produced in Nepal is Organic & Fair-trade and is scored as a Specialty Coffee in international specialty markets.
Where did you learn about coffee and which year in brief?
My father spends some time working as a tea technician in a tea plantation in India. He was a big fan of tea and he wanted to grow tea in Nepal. But the place where we live is found not a suitable land to grow tea but coffee. That’s how ‘the coffee thought’ arises and I have started a company called “South Asian Traders” on the 4th of December 1995 (Mangsir 18, 2052) as a carry forward of my father’s dream. This company was basically an international trading (export) company for tea and coffee. Later in 2010, there was a need for a separate company to handle coffee production and processing, so we have registered “Greenland Organic Farm Pvt. Ltd.” as the producer of the “HimalayanArabica® Coffee” brand.
Which species of Nepali coffee do we provide to our customers and what about the quantity?
HimalayanArabica® Nepal Coffee is of Arabica variety, most of which are Bourbon and Typica. Nepal does not grow Robusta Coffee. The coffee we grow in Nepal is above 1000 meters up to 1600 meters above sea level (altitude) with organic, sustainable, and eco-friendly practices by small-holding farmers. Selective hand picking of fully ripen cherries is done and pulped right after harvesting with hand pulper for wet processing of coffee. In a year we produce around 10 to 12 tons of washed processed green coffee beans. We also produce coffee by dry processing method in small quantities, say around 2 to 3 metric tons per year where cherries are harvested and dried in sun at the farm patios or raised beds sometimes.
If we had to compare our coffee, which country shall we mention?
There is not a straightforward answer to this question as every coffee is unique in their tastes and attributes. If we have to take a reference, we can refer slightly with African coffee. We found Nepal Coffee as Floral and Fruity undertones, smooth body, crisp sweetness, and untamed syrup aftertaste with mild acidity, a perfect component for excellent filter coffee, and for espresso blends.