Hooten's Homegrown

Coffee bushes

While in Mozambique,  we planted a bunch of coffee bushes given to us from missionary friends.  When we left Mozambique for Malawi , we decided to bring 7 small coffee bushes  with us to see if they would produce anything here.  Well, this year we have so far harvested around 2 Kilos of beans!  It is quite a process to get the finished product.   I thought I would show you some of the stages of this amazing brew!   (It would have had more coffee but this morning we discovered the beans David and I just gathered and put out to dry had been eaten by our Great Dane!!!!!  What a dumb dog!)  That was probably at least pound worth of beans!!!!

Mature beans

Only of  the 7 plants survived the transplanting.  This year they all are quite laden with beautiful berries.  We pick the berries when they are red.  Then you squeeze out the seeds – two to a berry.  Then we wash the beans as they are covered with a sweet pulp, and put them out in the sun to dry. 

After several days of drying, we pound the seeds to break an outer shell that covers the bean and let the chaff fly away with the wind…or the wind you make by blowing on it!

Drying beans

Get the skin off each bean....

Then we roast the beans…. Outside in an iron skillet, stirring the beans constantly!  The first time I did this was in my kitchen and the smoke from the roasted beans was horrible.  It takes about 10 min. to get them to the right color….  We used beans from another “reputable” coffee to gage this.  The next step is to blow the remaining chaff away and store the beans in an air tight container for about 48 hours.  This gives the oils in the beans a chance to permeate well or cure.. or something like that!   J

Then, we grind the beans and filter hot water through the coffee to make our delicious Hooten’s Homegrown!  Mmmmmm! (that is if you like coffee!)

Aww....such a nice aroma..