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Food Engineering Series
Series Editor: Gustavo V. Barbosa-Cánovas

Lucas Louzada Pereira

Taís Rizzo Moreira Editors

Quality
Determinants
In Coffee
Production
Food Engineering Series

Series Editors
Gustavo V. Barbosa-Cánovas, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

Advisory Board
José Miguel Aguilera, Catholic University, Santiago, Chile
Kezban Candoğan, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey
Richard W. Hartel, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
Albert Ibarz, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain
Micha Peleg, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
Shafiur Rahman, Sultan Qaboos University, Al-Khod, Oman
M. Anandha Rao, Cornell University, Geneva, NY, USA
Yrjö Roos, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Jorge Welti-Chanes, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico
Springer's Food Engineering Series is essential to the Food Engineering profession,
providing exceptional texts in areas that are necessary for the understanding and
development of this constantly evolving discipline. The titles are primarily
reference-oriented, targeted to a wide audience including food, mechanical,
chemical, and electrical engineers, as well as food scientists and technologists
working in the food industry, academia, regulatory industry, or in the design of food
manufacturing plants or specialized equipment.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5996

Lucas Louzada Pereira • Taís Rizzo Moreira
Editors

Quality Determinants
In Coffee Production
Editors
Lucas Louzada Pereira Taís Rizzo Moreira
Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory Department of Forest and Wood Science
Federal Institute of Espírito Santo Federal University of Espirito Santo
Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil Jerônimo Monteiro, ES, Brazil

ISSN 1571-0297
Food Engineering Series
ISBN 978-3-030-54436-2    ISBN 978-3-030-54437-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54437-9

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to my family, parents,
brothers, sisters, and my wife. Thanks Mrs.
Márcia Roberta da Silva Louzada, your
passion of literature is a personal motivation
to me.
By Lucas Louzada Pereira
Series Preface

Coffee is one of the most complex food chains in the world, involving $15 billion in
a global market. Spanning the path from planting to production to final consumption
through industrialization.
During the elaboration of this book, several authors gathered around the central
theme, the quality, seeking to understand how diverse coffee can be. Also, many
complex factors in the eyes of science could be explained, decoded, and applied to
society. Whether in the improvement of production processes or in the form of final
extraction of the product.
One thing is for sure, a broad collaborative network has remained solid over this
period, generating new hypotheses, shared understanding of new knowledge and
skills. Thus, this work presents the reader with a new perspective on areas that are
closely intertwined with the final quality of coffee.
We do not expect to clarify all doubts in this first approach, this will be immature
on our part, but we understand that we highlight the fundamental points for a broader
understanding of the determinants of quality, because of this, that is, we prepare for
the reader a scientific and technical presentation of parameters that are strongly
inclined to final quality.
Considering a proportionality relationship, the tacit parameter is that 40% of the
quality is formed between pre-harvest factors and the remaining 60% is formed by
post-harvest procedures. In the authors’ view, this relationship does not exist and in
this first approach we discuss a little of both phenomena, trying to explain to the
reader, whether academic or technical, how the two lines are blurred. In this new
perspective, we propose a relationship of equality or multiple correlation between
various phenomena.
This way, Quality Determinants in Coffee Production initially presents a per-
spective on harvesting and processing operations phenomena. And then, indicating
how climate factors may impact the production scenario, with a critical view on how
we understand such phenomena, and focusing on the state of Espírito Santo as a
zone of Robusta and Arabica coffee production in Brazil.

vii
viii Series Preface

The authors then present the relationship of soil microorganisms, and their
r­elationship with various factors that will corroborate the understanding of
­biochemical interaction in the fourth chapter, where we try to explain in a simplified
way the complex relationships that are formed during coffee processing. Proximity
and microbiology form and complement each other; however, in this first approach
we seek to focus on the primary aspects of microbial action in soil, the basic and
essential source of life for coffee production.
In the fifth chapter, we give the reader an approach to the coffee chemical
­composition, focusing on volatile compounds and how these compounds can shape
the final quality of coffee, then discussing the relationship of coffee processing and
fermentation techniques. Indicating the mechanisms that form during the post-­
harvest strategies.
In a complementary way, the seventh chapter deals with roasting, focusing on
routine, procedures, understanding the procedures that should be adopted for maxi-
mum extraction of coffee quality. Thus, presenting a scientific and technical per-
spective to the end users of these procedures.
As a conclusion of the work, the authors present the routine of physical classifi-
cation of coffee, focusing on the Brazilian methodology and present the sensory
indications that are commonly adopted around the world.
Finally, the book’s closure brings a perspective on future quality trends, focusing
on the Asian public, especially the Chinese and Japanese markets. Indicating refer-
rals on what consumers and producers around the world need to do to deliver spe-
cialty special coffee to the market.
As stated in this brief presentation, we do not have a complete review of all phe-
nomena and quality parameters here; however, we seek to provide an indication of
key points in this first version, so that the reader can understand the real determi-
nants of coffee quality.
Preface

New horizons, new perspectives, and especially the trust growth to the activity that
involves thousands of people around the world, which is a source of income for
more than 8 million jobs in Brazil, with 78,000 coffee-producing families in the
state of Espírito Santo.
In the last 20 years of which I am involved in the technical activity and especially
in the commercial area of coffee growing in Brazil and worldwide, I could witness
a true revolution. We came out of an unsustainable reality for farmers, where the
prospect of better remuneration, social and environmental sustainability, and espe-
cially recognition were minimal!
Small actions were emerging along with associations, cooperatives, technical
institutes, organization of the public sector, professionals, and researchers, taking
small steps towards a new direction, although unknown. However, with the purpose
of understanding the conditions of the production of special coffees, in one of the
regions where were produced the worst coffee in Brazil, consequently in the world.
Understanding the microclimate, soil management, altitude, post-harvest tech-
niques, and other technological factors, which are conditioning factors to produce a
good fruit and a good drink, were basic. And in the past, the productive chain was
focused on higher productivity and not on having a superior drink.
Much of the understanding of this was based on a localized culture of the largest
producing regions of Brazil, such as the South and Cerrado Mineiro, so the inevi-
table comparison brought doubt. Does the state of Espírito Santo really have the
potential to produce special coffee?
The answer began to be written in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the production
of Arabica coffee from Espírito Santo was almost entirely intended to supply low-­
quality coffee markets because information and technology was something far from
the reality of the producers. But with much persistence, studies, testing and imple-
mentation of new methods, which consequently came to break paradigms, of a cul-
ture that was dealing with a rich potential raw material in an obsolete and inadequate
manner, made possible a new scenario, with a horizon of new perspectives for the
production of special coffees.

ix
x Preface

Nowadays, the coffee produced in the Espírito Santo Mountains (Caparaó and
Serrana Region) are in the best coffee shops and roasters in the world, sharing the
shelves with the most expensive and worthy coffees on the planet. But why is that?
Let’s see, after two decades, the persistent work of these movements and people like
the authors of this book took the coffee from Espírito Santo to a new direction and
understanding, bringing real sustainability to the culture that produces the most
consumed beverage after water.
I invite you to understand this route and the technical paths tested and developed
by people who really cared about the surrounding coffee culture.
Good reading,
Rafael Marques Cotta
Coffee Specialist

Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil  Lucas Louzada Pereira

Jerônimo Monteiro, ES, Brazil   Taís Rizzo Moreira
Contents

  1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee��������������������������������������������    1

Juarez de Sousa e Silva, Aldemar P. Moreli,
Sergio Mauricio L. Donzeles, Sammy Fernandes Soares,
and Douglas Gonzaga Vitor
  2 Global Warming and the Effects of Climate Change
on Coffee Production ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65
Taís Rizzo Moreira, Samuel Ferreira da Silva,
Nathan Bruno da Silva,
Gleissy Mary Amaral Dino Alves dos Santos,
and Alexandre Rosa dos Santos
  3 Soil Microorganisms and Quality of the Coffee Beverage ������������������ 101
Paulo Prates Júnior, Tomás Gomes Reis Veloso,
Marliane de Cássia Soares da Silva, José Maria Rodrigues da Luz,
Sabrina Feliciano Oliveira, and Maria Catarina Megumi Kasuya
  4 Biochemical Aspects of Coffee Fermentation���������������������������������������� 149
Wilton Soares Cardoso, Bárbara Zani Agnoletti,
Rosângela de Freitas, Flávia de Abreu Pinheiro,
and Lucas Louzada Pereira
  5 Chemical Constituents of Coffee������������������������������������������������������������ 209
Patrícia Fontes Pinheiro, Carlos Alexandre Pinheiro,
Vanessa Moreira Osório, and Lucas Louzada Pereira
  6 Relationship Between Coffee Processing and Fermentation���������������� 255
Lucas Louzada Pereira, Dério Brioschi Júnior,
Luiz Henrique Bozzi Pimenta de Sousa, Willian dos Santos Gomes,
Wilton Soares Cardoso, Rogério Carvalho Guarçoni,
and Carla Schwengber ten Caten

xi
xii Contents

7 Roasting Process�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 303

Lucas Louzada Pereira, Danieli Grancieri Debona,
Patrícia Fontes Pinheiro, Gustavo Falquetto de Oliveira,
Carla Schwengber ten Caten, Valentina Moksunova,
Anna V. Kopanina, Inna I. Vlasova, Anastasiaya I. Talskikh,
and Hisashi Yamamoto
8 Physical Classification and Sensory Coffee Analysis���������������������������� 373
Lucas Louzada Pereira, João Paulo Pereira Marcate,
Alice Dela Costa Caliman, Rogério Carvalho Guarçoni,
and Aldemar Polonini Moreli
9 Trends in Specialty Coffee���������������������������������������������������������������������� 407
Natalia Li and Yoshiharu Sakamoto
About the Editors

Lucas Louzada Pereira is a professor at the Federal Institute of Education,

Science and Technology of Espírito Santo, a Q-Grader licensed by the Coffee
Quality Institute and creator of the Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory—
LAPC. As a researcher, he works on the understanding of coffee quality, focusing
on the study of processing, with emphasis on fermentation, and on the triple rela-
tionship, microorganisms, volatile compounds, and coffee sensory analysis. In addi-
tion to research work, he teaches disciplines focused on process control, production
management, and quality management. He has dedicated his professional life to the
academic education of students and the transfer of technology and knowledge to
improve the quality of coffees produced in Brazil.

Taís Rizzo Moreira, MSc is currently a PhD student in the Postgraduate Program
in Forest Sciences at the Center for Agricultural Sciences and Engineering, conduct-
ing research on the climate influence on coffee production in Brazil. She holds a
degree in Forestry Engineering from the Federal University of Espírito Santo and a
master's degree in Forestry from the same University. She works in the area of
Environment and Water Resources, with emphasis on Environmental Geotechnology,
applying Geoprocessing as a tool to assist scientific and technological development.

xiii
Contributors xv

Contributors

Bárbara Zani Agnoletti Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Espírito

Santo, Vitoria, ES, Brazil
Alice Dela Costa Caliman Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Wilton Soares Cardoso Campus Venda Nova do Imigrante, Federal Institute of
Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
José Maria Rodrigues da Luz Department of Microbiology, Federal University
of Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Nathan Bruno da Silva Department of Forest and Wood Science, Federal
University of Espírito Santo, Jerônimo Monteiro, ES, Brazil
Samuel Ferreira da Silva Department of Agronomy, Federal University of
Espírito Santo, Alegre, ES, Brazil
Flávia de Abreu Pinheiro Department of Food Science and Technology, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Danieli Grancieri Debona Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Marliane de Cássia Soares da Silva Department of Microbiology, Federal
University of Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Rosângela de Freitas Department of Food Technology, Federal University of
Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Gustavo Falquetto de Oliveira Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Juarez de Sousa e Silva Department of Agronomy, Federal University of Viçosa,
Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Luiz Henrique Bozzi Pimenta de Sousa Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory,
Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
xvi Contributors

Sergio Mauricio L. Donzeles Agricultural Research Company of Minas Gerais,

Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Willian dos Santos Gomes Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Alexandre Rosa dos Santos Department of Rural Engineering, Federal University
of Espírito Santo, Alegre, ES, Brazil
Gleissy Mary Amaral Dino Alves dos Santos Department of Chemistry, Federal
University of Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Rogério Carvalho Guarçoni Department of Statistics, Capixaba Institute for
Technical Assistance, Research and Extension, Vitória, ES, Brazil
Dério Brioschi Júnior Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal Institute
of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Paulo Prates Júnior Department of Microbiology, Federal University of Viçosa,
Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Maria Catarina Megumi Kasuya Department of Microbiology, Federal
University of Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Anna V. Kopanina Laboratory of Plant ecology and Geoecology, Center of collective
sharing, Institute of Marine geology and Geophysics, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia
Natalia Li Ingenuity Coffee, Canton, Guangdong, China
João Paulo Pereira Marcate Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Valentina Moksunova Hummingbird Coffee LLC, Moscow, Russia
Taís Rizzo Moreira Department of Forest and Wood Science, Federal University
of Espírito Santo, Jerônimo Monteiro, ES, Brazil
Aldemar Polonini Moreli Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Sabrina Feliciano Oliveira Department of Microbiology, Federal University of
Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Vanessa Moreira Osório Department of Physics and Chemistry, Federal University
of Espírito Santo, Alegre, ES, Brazil
Lucas Louzada Pereira Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal
Institute of Espírito Santo, Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
Carlos Alexandre Pinheiro Department of Physics and Chemistry, Federal
University of Espírito Santo, Alegre, ES, Brazil
Contributors xvii

Patrícia Fontes Pinheiro Department of Physics and Chemistry, Federal

University of Espírito Santo, Alegre, ES, Brazil
Yoshiharu Sakamoto Act Coffee Planning, Yokohama, City Hall de Kanagawa,
Japan
Sammy Fernandes Soares Department of Research and Development, Brazilian
Agricultural Research Corporation, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Anastasiaya I. Talskikh Laboratory of Plant ecology and Geoecology, Institute of
Marine geology and Geophysics, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia
Carla Schwengber ten Caten Department of Production Engineering, Federal
University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Tomás Gomes Reis Veloso Department of Microbiology, Federal University of
Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
Douglas Gonzaga Vitor Agricultural Research Company of Minas Gerais, Viçosa,
MG, Brazil
Inna I. Vlasova Laboratory of Plant ecology and Geoecology, Institute of Marine
Geology and Geophysics, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia
Hisashi Yamamoto Unir/Hisashi Yamamoto Coffee Inc., Nagaoka, Japan
Chapter 1
Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee

Juarez de Sousa e Silva, Aldemar P. Moreli, Sergio Mauricio L. Donzeles,

Sammy Fernandes Soares, and Douglas Gonzaga Vitor

1 General Introduction

Historically, Brazil is recognized as the major producer and exporter of coffee in the
international market. In 1961, the Brazilian exportation reached 37% of world
exports of coffee beans, while in 1995 it accounted for only 20% of these exports.
Despite of this decrease, Brazil produced 27 million bags (60 kg each bag) of coffee
in 1997, 30 million bags for the 98/99 crop and 45 million bags for the 2016/17 crop
which represented around 30% of the international market.
With the current production techniques, Brazilian coffee became one of the best
in the world. In addition to being the largest exporter, Brazil is also one of the major
consumers behind only of the United States, which is the world’s largest coffee
consumer. Although the Brazilian “cerrado” has the most professionally coffee
plantations, due to the appropriated topography, mechanization and the ideal cli-
mate for harvesting. Excellent coffee plantations, with an ideal climate for produc-
tion of fine coffees are spread throughout the mountain forests of Espírito Santo and

J. de Sousa e Silva (*)

Department of Agronomy, Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]
A. P. Moreli
Coffee Analysis and Research Laboratory, Federal Institute of Espírito Santo,
Venda Nova do Imigrante, ES, Brazil
S. M. L. Donzeles · D. G. Vitor
Agricultural Research Company of Minas Gerais, Viçosa, MG, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
S. F. Soares
Department of Research and Development, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation,
Viçosa, MG, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

L. Louzada Pereira, T. Rizzo Moreira (eds.), Quality Determinants in Coffee
Production, Food Engineering Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54437-9_1
2 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Bahia and Paraná. According to CONAB, the 2020 coffee
harvest in the State of Minas Gerais showed a record of 30.7 million bags and
reached almost 60% of the Brazilian production, which was 51.3 million bags
produced.
For the sustainability of coffee-growing, all the producing countries have to fol-
low a quality standard. Coffee is one of the few agricultural products whose price is
based on qualitative parameters, varying significantly the value with the improve-
ment of its quality. Details about the quality of coffee are seen in Chap. 3 (soil
microorganisms and quality of the coffee beverage). Thus, extensive knowledge of
high-quality coffee production techniques is indispensable for modern coffee grow-
ing. Therefore, quality with sustainability will be the main subjects discussed in this
chapter.
Coffee quality, which is related to grain characteristics, such as color, appear-
ance, number of defects, aroma and taste of the beverage. These characteristics
depend on several factors, among them can mentioned:
(a) Preparation and storage process;
(b) Roasting; and,
(c) Beverage preparation.
The first topic is the purpose of this chapter and it is, with the ripe fruit, at the
ideal harvest point, the ideal raw material to obtain good quality coffee. To maintain
this quality, it is necessary to use special and careful techniques throughout the
preparation steps. From harvesting to storage, the coffee goes through a series of
operations that well executed, will provide a product within consumer standards.

2 Harvesting and Cleaning Coffee Beans

In this topic we will talk about harvesting and cleaning the coffee beans. The reader
may question: why cleaning if the fruits come straight from the plant? It turns out
that when you take the fruits out of the plant, even with the greatest care, other
materials such as leaf, peduncles and pieces of branches can come together with the
fruits. If these materials are not removed, they make the drying and peeling hulling
processes more difficult.
Harvesting coffee is a complex operation, it has several stages and demands
around 30% of the production cost. Besides 40% of the labor employed in the coffee
plantations is concentrated in a relatively short period of time on the coffee farm.
In the last few years, there is a great mechanization expansion of the harvesting
operations and is becoming an irreversible process, which aims, above all, the valo-
rization of the labor and the maximization of the harvest results. The traditional
mechanization methods have only been possible to be applied in land with slopes of
up to 20%. Which combined with other operational and economic restrictions show
that coffee farm mechanization always depends on human labor.
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 3

In addition, the machines require operators, maintenance staff and technical

assistance, which is provide by skilled labor. Also, coffee harvesting is compara-
tively more difficult to execute than other products, due to the height and architec-
ture of the plant, the uneven maturity and the fruits moisture content.
As previously mentioned, coffee harvesting takes place in a short period of time,
no more than three consecutive months. In Brazil, generally starting in April and
May in regions with higher temperatures. Other regions such as Araponga—MG
and Venda Nova do Imigrante—ES the harvesting may extend until October and
November for properties located at high altitudes.
The quantity of fruits in the plant, the number of fruits fallen in the soil, and the
harvest season duration are factors to be considered to start the coffee harvesting. It
is important that all production factors are suitable according to the requirement of
the crop, because the price of the coffee beans is based on qualitative parameters,
therefore, farmers will not reach good results, if they do not fit all parameters, even
using good harvesting practices.
The coffee harvesting should be started when most fruits (90%) are ripe and
before fruits drop begins. Normally, the harvest period occurs, on average, 7 months
after flowering and that happens with the first rains (September to November in
Brazil).
In a single coffee crop, several blooms can occur and this fact does not result in
a harvest with homogeneous maturation (Table 1.1). The general rule is that the cof-
fee harvest period varies from region to region and four basic harvesting systems are
used: (1) single-pass stripping: all branches bearing fruit are harvested at once, thus
collecting unripe, ripe and overripe cherries altogether and it is the most common
practice in Brazil; (2) multi-pass stripping: only branches bearing mainly ripe cher-
ries are harvested; a method that relies mainly on the ability of the worker; (3)
multi-pass selective picking (finger picking): only ripe cherries are harvested; and
(4) mechanical harvesting: different types of machines are used to harvest all fruits
at once. Therefore, it is important to have knowledge about all harvest operations,
such as: cleaning under the tree, manual or selective harvesting, manual or mecha-
nized single-pass stripping, handpicking, dirt sieving and winnowing, and
transportation.
Once started, the harvest can be completed in a few weeks or up to 3 months,
depending on the conditions of flowering, fruit growth and maturation. However,
these conditions depend on altitude, latitude and climate. The longer the coffee

Table 1.1 Moisture content Moisture content

of different types of fruits Types of fruits (% w.b.)
during coffee harvest
Unripe 60–70
Cherry 45–55
Over ripe 30–40
Partially dry 20–30
After pulped 50–55
4 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

remains in the tree or on the ground, after maturation, the greater the incidence of
black and burned grains, and they are considered, together with unripe fruits, the
worst coffee defects.

2.1 Cleaning Around and Under the Tree

The cleaning operation consists of removing loose soil, weeds and debris that must
be heaped between the rows of coffee trees. It should be done before the fruits begin
to fall on the ground and can be carried out basically in three ways (manual, mechan-
ical and chemical) or an association between them. Manual cleaning and heaping
are done using appropriate tools. It has as advantage the good quality of the service
and disadvantage the low work performance and high operational cost.
The mechanical cleaning and heaping consist of the use of machines coupled to
the tractor. These machines may have blades or blowers, or even an association of
these equipment’s. The advantage of mechanical heaping is the high yield, low
operating cost and good quality of service and the disadvantage is the damages of
the coffee root system.

2.2 Single-Pass Stripping

Harvesting by Single-pass stripping for the production of natural coffee should

begin when part of the fruit has passed from the mature stage and with a small
amount of unripe fruits. At this point, fruits that are relatively dry on the surface are
easy to handle. However, a good proportion of partially dried fruits, depending on
the weather conditions, fall on the soil.
In order to solve this problem, the soil under the coffee tree must be previously
cleaned by any operation previously described and in such a way that the fruit fallen
on the ground can be easily collected after the first harvest. In the case of the mar-
keting of freshly harvested and unprocessed coffee (fresh fruit), it may be consid-
ered that 480 L of clean fruits (cherry) will result in 60 kg of green or processed
coffee. At the end, a careful harvesting of remaining fruits in the tree or soil should
be done to avoid the proliferation of the insect known as the coffee borer.
Harvesting by the Single-pass stripping system, usually part of the coffee is par-
tially dry, a significant amount is unripe, ripe or over-ripe. The proportions change
as the harvest progresses. Although most farmers harvest in a single pass stripping,
they should perform the harvest in two or more passes in each tree, as a matter of
quality and avoiding damages to the coffee trees.
Appropriate facilities and techniques (clean water, canals, tanks and pulping
machine), can reduce defects from inadequate harvesting, which can be done by
separation in water.
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 5

Colombia has climate conditions more propitious for harvesting by hand-­picking,

the period extends for more than 6 months during the year and basically 100% of the
coffee produced is washed coffee.
In the manual striping, the workers run their hands, partially closed, along the
branches collecting all types of fruits and avoiding leaves of being removed.
Although, some leaves are removed, it is unavoidable, the worker should be trained
or receive a prize in order to remove as few leaves as possible. The stripping of the
coffee cherries can be done on the soil, previously prepared, or on plastic or cloth
sheets placed under the coffee trees. Even if you have a well-built structure, the
stripping on soil should never be recommended, because it demands a lot of strength
from the workers.
If the harvested coffee is mixed with dirt, leaves and branches, as usually happen
during the stripping on the soil process, it must be pre-cleaned before being packed
for transportation and volume checking. The farmer should provide some training,
especially for young workers, so they can develop skills to gain efficiency and pro-
ductivity in the pre-cleaning process.
To increase yield, avoid excessive leaf withdrawal and facilitate the stripping
operation, the worker should begin harvesting the fruits by the end of the branch and
not at the beginning, also avoiding any insertion point of the branch.

2.3 Sweep and Collect

Stripping and the collection are very important operations in the Brazilian coffee
farms. Sweeping is the operation of piling up and picking up coffee that has fallen
on the soil, this operation is not recommended when quality is a priority. Sweeping
is done first to separate the fallen coffee from the stripped coffee. For stripping on
the cloth, sweeping is done later. Sweeping can be done manually or mechanically.
There are also mechanical blowers, which can facilitate the coffee harvesting, mini-
mizing the physical work.

2.4 Winnowing

When coffee beans are not handpicked, they should be as quickly as possible, trans-
ported to the separation processes before further operations. Separation of unwanted
foreign material can be achieved by sieving—manual winnowing. Coffee cleaning
can also be done with a tractor-powered machine or hand-powered machines.
The aim of pre-cleaning is to pack clean coffee and leave the organic waste in the
field. A good shaking eliminates most of the problems in the post-harvest opera-
tions, avoiding contamination by microorganisms and their consequences.
6 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

The elimination of unwanted materials will avoid constant interruptions in the

drying, storage and processing operations. Consequently, preventing excessive
energy consumption, extra labor and unnecessary use of the equipment involved in
these operations.
If the coffee beans have not been pre-cleaned in the field, they must go through
the leaf separator and the sieve system, located upstream of the coffee washer
machine. The rest of the unwanted materials are separated and directed into an
appropriate open tube and eliminated, by a proper device of each coffee washer, as
it will be seen further on.
Manual pre-cleaning with sieves, as shown in Fig. 1.1. Different ways of clean-
ing, and bagged clean coffee waiting for transportis a low-yielding, exhausting and
unhealthy operation in case of coffee being harvested by Single-pass stripping on
the soil or when the swept coffee is collected. Another drawback is the lack of natu-
ral ventilation, which assists in the elimination of leaves and light foreign materials,
barks, branches and lights. Regardless of whether it is performed by a man or a
woman, traditional sieving is painful work: in addition to physical endurance, also
requires a lot of skill to execute it. The machines used to separate the unwanted
materials in the field, greatly facilitate the work that comes after the harvest opera-
tion. Pre-cleaning prior to the washing system can result in a significant reduction
in water consumption by the coffee washer. Also, increasing the separation effi-
ciency of the washer or hydraulic separator.
In selective harvesting especially finger picking, some of the previous problems
are eliminated. In these harvesting systems, the coffee is practically clean before
entering the pre-processing unit.

Fig. 1.1 Different ways of cleaning, and bagged clean coffee waiting for transport. Source: Silva
et al. (2018)
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 7

2.4.1 Motorized Pre-Cleaning Coffee Machine

Due to the difficulties pointed out and the need to increase worker productivity by
manual harvest, a hand powered machine was developed to shake and separate the
fruits from foreign materials. The machine is portable, low cost, and easy to operate.
In the case of a larger coffee-growing, one machine can be used by ten workers. For
big coffee farms, there are excellent motorized equipment produced by the Brazilian
industry (Fig. 1.2).
The manual coffee pre-cleaning machine (Fig. 1.3) is an equipment consisting of
two oscillating sieves and a fixed one (optional), arranged to separate larger impuri-
ties (leaves and sticks) and very small fruits from high qualities coffee fruits.
The sieves vibration is created by a crank or an electric motor and a set of pul-
leys. Charging is done in the hopper located on the top of the machine. From the
hopper, the material (coffee + unwanted materials) passes through the upper sieve,
where larger materials (leaves, sticks, etc.) are retained. Then they are directed
towards the channel, located at the end of the sieves. The waste (small fruit) can be
collected in the fixed screen (optional) located on the bottom of the machine.

Fig. 1.2 Motorized Pre-cleaning coffee machine produced by Pinhalense. Source:

Pinhalense (2013)
8 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

Fig. 1.3 Side view (a) e frontal view (b) of the manual pre-cleaning machine with one fixed sieve.
Source: Silva et al. (2018)

2.5 Selective Harvest or Finger picking

At picking or selective harvesting, only the ripe fruits are collected, and can be
placed in a basket, sieve screen or cloth under the coffee tree. This harvesting tech-
nique is common in places where fruit maturation occurs in more than 6 months in
a year (in the range close to the equator).
As the demand for special coffee (higher quality coffee) is growing, many
Brazilian farmers, mainly family farmers, have been adopting this harvest system
with great success. With better price and special market, it is worth the appropriate
technology, despite the great need of manpower.
As previously mentioned, it is important to harvest and collect all coffee, because
the fruit remaining in the soil until the next harvest season facilitates the propaga-
tion of pests and diseases, particularly the coffee borer that significantly changes the
final type and quality of the beverage.
Whatever the harvesting process, the coffee must finally be measured, bagged
and transported to the pre-processing unit. It is extremely important to transport the
coffee in the same day of its harvest. When for some reason the transportation can-
not be done in the same day, avoid air-tight containers such as plastic bag. If the
pre-processing has to be started in the next day, the coffee should be placed in the
hopper or reception tank and submerged in running water to avoid heating due to
both the breathing and the beginning of the fermentation process.
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 9

2.6 Mechanized Harvesting

Mechanized harvest (Fig. 1.4), despite being developed and applied in regions with
flat topography, it is a good option only for big coffee producers. Even using rental
machines, the high yield during harvesting season do not fit with small producers
pre-processing system. Which means, this technology is used only for a few farms
in Brazil, where most of the harvesting is done by the hand striping system, due to
the farm size and mountain topography.
Nowadays, with the difficulty of hiring labor (less problematic in family coffee-­
growing), the natural tendency is the expansion of the mixed system, which is, a
balanced amount of labor and small machines, especially in mountain regions, due
to a lack of appropriate technology for these areas.

2.7 Coffee Transportation to the Pre-Processing Unit

The transport of coffee beans is the conducing operation of the fruits already har-
vested and collected from the field to the pre-processing unit, where the post-harvest
operations must be continued. Whenever is possible, the production should be trans-
ported at the same day of harvesting. If the farm manager needs to wait until the
next day to transport the production, the coffee beans should be bagged in open
containers so they can breathe, avoiding fermentation, then the transportation can be
done with appropriate bags or in bulk.

Fig. 1.4 Mechanized harvesting details. Source: Authors

10 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

As previously said, occurring failure to start the pre-processing operation, on the

same day of harvesting, the production must be stored in clean and cold water or
with forced ventilation system. The adoption of a small sprinkler over the receiving
hopper with a drainage system is a good solution to keep the coffee fruits cool over-
night. The following photos (Fig. 1.5) illustrate how to hold, transport, unload and
maintain coffee in clean water in the pre-processing unit.

3 Pre-Processing of the Coffee Beans

In Brazil, because of the harvest method used, the production is composed of a

mixture of unripe, ripe (cherry and greenish), and dried fruits, leaves and branches.
Also, when coffee beans are harvested directly on the ground, they can contain soil
and stones, which must be cleaned and separated into their various fractions so they
can be dried separately. All these operations are called pre-processing and they can
be performed by a dry way or drying the entire fruit, this way the final product will
be called natural coffee. The fruits can also be processed by the wet way, which
consists of drying the fruits without the pericarp or without pericarp and mucilage.
In this case, the final product is called “Peeled Cherry” and “pulped coffee” or
washed coffee, respectively. Regardless of the harvest techniques or pre-processing,
all coffee beans should pass through the washing system and also by the density
separation system.

Fig. 1.5 Waiting periods for the transport, unloading and maintenance of the coffee beans before
pre-processing. Source: Authors
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 11

3.1 Washing and Separation of Coffee

The coffee grower who intends to produce high quality coffee should never forget
that, even removing all impurities (sticks, dirt, stones, leaves, etc.) during the pre-­
cleaning process in the field, the coffee must necessarily pass through the coffee
washer to separate fine material stuck to the coffee beans surface and the separation
of coffee beans from unwanted materials by density difference (Fig. 1.6).
It is in the hydraulic separator that, depending on the density of the coffee beans,
separates them. The fruits called floats (dried, brocaded, malformed and immature)
floating in the water are separated from the perfect fruits (ripe and greenish), after
that, they must be pre-processed, dried and stored separately.
Even using the pre-cleaning operation in the field, it is desirable that before
entering the coffee washer, a cleaning machine will improve the overall pre-­
processing system and subsequent operations, such as pulping, drying and hulling
as it will be seen later, in this chapter.
If it is possible, it would be desirable that after passing through the cleaning
system, a size sorter be adapted so that after washing, the coffee can be processed
into, at least, two more homogeneous batches.
Even producer that does not want to produce peeled coffee must adopt a coffee
washer machine for technical and economic reasons. With this equipment, the size
of the drying system and manpower will be reduced and above all, it will produce

Fig. 1.6 Mechanical system for coffee washing and separation. Source: Silva et al. (2011)
12 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

two differentiated portions (high density coffees and float coffee). It will require a
smaller terrace dryer and it is estimated that farmers will earn more money during
the commercialization of the differentiated coffee portions, an additional over 10%
to the value that would earn for the coffee that did not go through washing and sepa-
ration processes.
Considering that a farm has produced 2100 bags and got an additional average of
$7.00 per bag, due to the segregation of portions (cherries, floats and unripe fruits),
the profit from this operation would be a total of $15,700 above the sale price of the
mixed coffee. Currently, in just one harvest season, the farmer pays off the invest-
ment made in a good washing and separation system, which can be done with the
money earned through the graded coffee.
Nowadays, the Brazilian industry provides excellent medium to large capacity
coffee washing machines. However, it is very difficult to find a coffee washing
machine that fits family coffee production. There are few models, despite the size,
that may fit family farmers (power 1 HP and 2000 L/H capacity). This model has the
advantage of having a pre-cleaning system, which later on will facilitate subse-
quent work.
For those who are unable to purchase a mechanized coffee washer or for those
who have the ability and the conditions to build their own equipment, we suggest
the models illustrated in Fig. 1.7.

Fig. 1.7 Mobile coffee washer with tilting system to unload high density coffee beans. Source:
Silva et al. (2014)
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 13

The two models can be easily constructed in a small metallurgical industry or on

the farm itself. They are ideal for small productions and consist simply of two tanks,
the first one holding the washing water. They can be constructed of metal sheet and
fixed on wheels (portable coffee washer), or with the water tank built in masonry
and fixed on the ground (fixed coffee washer). In both models, the second tank is
tilting and constructed with perforated plate, which is used to retain the high-density
coffee beans.
After the low-density coffee beans are withdrawn, by a common sieve, the heavy
coffee beans are unloaded by the tilting system and transported to the next operation.
Ideally for the operation in this type of coffee washer is to have continuous feed
(½ inch tubing) with clean water. If there is insufficient running water for continu-
ous renewal of the coffee washing water, the water in the tank must be changed at
each wash of 500 L of coffee beans (1 L of water per liter of coffee would be
reasonable).
Another relatively well-functioning coffee washing system, though a bit more
demanding is the box washer shown in Fig. 1.8. This system seems to be the best
option for a small farmer who wants to improve coffee production.
Some models can be replaced by the tilt system with an endless thread with per-
forated sheet conductor tube to facilitate water flow. Remember that the bottom of
the water tank is tilted to facilitate the heavy removal of coffee. Due to the price of
the auger, it must be adapted to be withdrawn after the harvest season.
One type of coffee washer that can be built on the farm is the traditional
“Maravilha” (Brazilian name for the coffee washer). The “Maravilha” basically
consists of a tank and a metal gutter with branched outlet in which is adapted a
pressure-injected water system to separate the heavy fruits from the stones and to
direct the cherry coffee to the appropriate gutter. The dry fruits and light material

Fig. 1.8 Rustic homemade coffee washer using water box and shade screen to separate the high-­
density coffee. Source: Silva et al. (2014)
14 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

pass freely over the false bottom and are unloaded at the end of the floats gutter.
This gutter is nothing more than the continuity of the main one it came out from
the hopper.
In the past, it was used when clean water was not a limiting factor, this kind of
equipment was gradually being replaced by mechanical models. The great disad-
vantage of the “Maravilha” coffee washer is the excessive consumption of water,
which depending on the construction form and coffee beans dirtiness may exceed
10 L of water for each liter of cleaned coffee. The high-water consumption of the
coffee washer is due to the fact that much of the water is used to transport the coffee
through the separation gutters.
If water is available and everything is taken care of to avoid compromising the
environment, the “Maravilha” can be built to wash up to 10,000 L of coffee beans
per hour. To save water, the washer can be built with a total or partial recirculation
system for the washing water. In this case, after each day worked, the water must be
used for irrigation or sent to infiltration ponds.
The “Maravilha” coffee washer with water recirculation consists of a hopper
tank, a receiving tank (washer/separator) and recirculating tank with chicanes for
decantation of the waste from washing water. A semi-open rotor pump for effluent
recirculation and outflow is used to supply water for transportation in the gutters.
In addition to the lower water consumption and less use of hand labor, mechani-
cal coffee washers are compact, require less space and can be rearranged or mar-
keted in case of withdrawal from coffee activity. On the other hand, the “Maravilha”
has the same characteristics as the mechanical washer, if mobility is not considered.
After cleaning and washing, regardless of the type of coffee washer, the coffee
can be sent to the dry process, which consists of drying the whole fruit “natural cof-
fee”. If the wet process will be used, the coffee must be subjected to the peeling,
with removal of the mucilage or not and washing (optional) before the drying pro-
cess, which is referred to “peeled” or “washed” coffees.

3.2 Pre-processing by “Dry Way”

In the “dry way” coffee processing, the grower must prepare the coffee beans to dry
the fruits in their integral form and separated from the unwanted materials, and
optionally separated by density right after harvesting.
In order to save time, energy and improve coffee quality, the farmer who wishes
to process his coffee through the dry way process should be advised to do so by
separating the low-density materials, such as unripe, malformed and brocaded from
high density materials, ripe and greenish fruits. Coffee beans with high density have
better quality characteristics. After being separated, fruits with high and low densi-
ties, they must be dried, stored, processed and marketed separately.
Although the process discussed is referred to as a “dry way”, the first operation
after pre-cleaning is to separate the production by density in the coffee washer. The
coffee washer, besides removing fine dirt adhered to the fruits, simultaneously
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 15

performs the separation between floats from high density coffee beans. Therefore,
the coffee washer/separator is an essential equipment in the coffee pre-processing.
With the well-separated and high-density fruits, in the washing process, they
must be brought in their entire form to the drying process in isolated batches and
forming what we call natural coffee. It is expected that if the drying process is exe-
cuted correctly, the high-density fruits will produce a great coffee highly appreci-
ated in the special coffee market.
For the floating fruits, this expectation does not prevail. The producer must make
analysis and hope that the product that originated the floats is also of good quality.
In fact, due to the incidence of many brocaded, unripe and fermented fruits, it is
extremely hard to produce good quality coffee. In order to improve the commercial-
ization, it is recommended that the coffee beans, once they have been processed,
they should be submitted to a reprocessing operation and after that an electronic
selection to eliminate defects. Therefore, the transformation of ripe cherry fruits, in
their entire form into dry fruit, is called “dry way” processing.
Although produced according to good harvesting and preparation methods, it
produces a coffee with the true natural taste and highly desired by the consumer.
When the production is harvested by stripping on the soil, hardly provides a higher
quality coffee.
Drying, storage and processing of dried coffee beans require a longer drying
time, greater energy consumption, more space for storage and greater machines
maintenance. The “dry way” is, based on the mentioned facts, the most expensive
process of coffee processing.
Although the coffee has been washed and separated in water, the process has
been called the ‘dry way“ to differentiate the process that received the name “wet
way” due to the fact that after passing by the same operations previously seen, the
coffee beans, before being sent to the drying operation, must go through up to four
operations that uses water intensely.
The differentiation from the “dry way” process is that the coffee beans that pass
through the wet way process are taken to the drying process in the form of seeds
with parchment, after that, the fruits are subjected to the peeling or pulping, which
is made by machines that use water to facilitate the outer skin removal and separation.
Although it is known as a coffee producer using the “dry way” process, there is
good conditions in Brazil for washed coffee production, mainly in the mountainous
regions where it is easy to find family work and plenty of clean water supply.
However, nowadays the production of only peeled coffee has grown steadily, show-
ing a well prepared, full bodied and naturally flavored coffee as its advantage.
To facilitate the understanding of the ‘wet way” process without going into
detail, it must consider that coffee fruits are composed simply of the following
parts: outer skin, pulp, parchment, silver film and seeds.
The coffee seeds, also known as coffee beans or “green coffee beans”, are
exported or sold directly to the domestic roasting industry. Therefore, it is not pos-
sible to mistake the unroasted coffee beans, which they are greenish in color, with
the immature fruits (green and low-density fruits). They are separated in the coffee
washing machine and together with the partially dried or brocaded coffees are called
16 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

buoy or floats coffees. Another type of fruit that is not fully ripe and termed as
greenish fruits are separated from the ripe ones during peeling.
The coffee pulping operation consists in removing the outer skin from the ripe
fruits by a mechanical peeler and, optionally, subsequent mucilage fermentation and
grain washing. Peeled coffee has the advantage of requiring considerably less dry-
ing terrace area and less drying time. The required volumes of dryers, silos and bag
storage can also be reduced by up to 50% if compared with coffee processed by the
“dry way”. These advantages are due to the uniformity and the low moisture con-
tent, around 50% w.b., when compared to the drying of the integral fruit. In the same
way, we can also obtain the simply peeled coffee, which differs from the pulped
ones because it does not go through the fermentation step and remains with a good
part of the mucilage during and after the drying process.
The removal of mucilage by natural fermentation is a process of solubilization
and digestion of the product by microorganisms present in the environment. If
poorly conducted it may jeopardize the quality and acceptance of coffee in the inter-
national market. The ideal fermentation time is very variable and depends on the
environment temperature. The type and degree of tanks hygiene, the maturation
stage of the fruits, the quality of the water used, the time elapsed between harvest-
ing, peeling and beginning of the pulping operation. Generally, it varies between 15
and 20 h.
To speed up the mucilage removal process, the farmers may choose to add small
amounts of special enzymes, which under environment conditions can complete the
mucilage digestion in approximately 7 h. The ideal fermentation process for high
quality coffee can be seen in Chap. 6.
Peeled coffees when well prepared are always classified as high-value commer-
cial drinks. The mucilage is considered by farmers as a deterrent to the initial drying
process and can be mechanically removed with great success. For this operation, the
Brazilian market offers excellent machines that consume small volume of water per
litter of peeled coffee.
In the mucilage remove machine (optional), the wet parchment coffee enters the
base in a cylinder with a helicoid and an internal axis with nozzles that raise the
grains to the top, where they leave practically without the mucilage. During this
operation, the shaft and nozzles must be closed by a cylinder made of perforated
metal sheet where the mucilage is discarded.
The first image of Fig. 1.9a, shows a traditional machine without the cap and
with part of the cylinder being opened to show the helicoid and the nozzle system.
During displacement, the mucilage is removed by water passing between the perfo-
rated cylinder and the shaft.
The processed coffee in this form is called Peeled Cherry. This traditional fer-
mentation and washing processes are widely used in Colombia and Central
American countries, grains are kept in a reservoir, immersed in water. In the fermen-
tation tank (Fig. 1.9b) the coffee remains, for an enough period of time, so the
microorganisms can consume the mucilage. After biological mucilage removal the
coffee should be washed with clean water and sent to one of the drying processes.
Coffee processed this way, receives the commercial name of “washed coffee”.
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 17

Fig. 1.9 Mucilage extractor machine (a) in detail and in operation and part (b), Peeled Coffee,
fermentation tank and wash channels after fermentation. Source: Authors

3.3 Reuse and Application of Processing Waters

Regardless of the process of preparing the coffee by “dry way” or, especially, by
“wet way” a great amount of water is used.
If the option is for the traditional peeled cherry coffee process, a high-water con-
sumption is required, about 3–5 L of water per liter of processed fruits. Also, during
the washing, peeling and mucilage removal processes, fragments of leaves, branches,
fruits, mucilage and many other wastes that had adhered to the so-called “ field cof-
fee”, join the water of pre-processing forming the coffee processing water.
Due to the nutritional potential of these waste the coffee processing water cannot
be released into the rivers or lakes without proper treatment. Therefore, that meets
the conditions and standards for discharging effluents, as provided in Resolution
430, of May 2011, of CONAMA (Brazil 2011).

4 Drying

Knowing the techniques and equipment for coffee pre-processing that can be bought
in the commerce or built in the farm (see equipment construction manual). In the
same way, the next step is to know how to maintain or to minimize the reduction of
coffee quality during the drying process.
As there are several possibilities to perform coffee drying, the coffee grower, in
order to implement a project should be aware of the possibilities to choose the best
option in each situation. The farmer must decide to purchase an industrialized
equipment or build a drying system where efficiency, economy and quality are
priorities.
As will be seen later on this topic, not always the most used technology means
the best option; the reader will conclude that coffee drying is comparatively harder
18 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

to perform than other products. In addition to the high sugar content in the mucilage
and the initial moisture content, generally around 62% w.b., the deterioration rate
shortly after harvesting is high.
If the aim is high quality coffee, the coffee grower needs to know that only in the
first 3 days are possible to avoid a reduction in the quality obtained during the har-
vest, since the maximum quality is with the ripe fruit in the plant. Thus, whatever
the drying system used; the following aspects are emphasized for the success of the
coffee processing:
(a) Avoid undesirable fermentations before harvesting, pre-processing and dur-
ing drying;
(b) Excessively high temperatures should be avoided. Coffee tolerates 40 °C for 1
or 2 days, 50 °C for a few hours and 60 °C for less than 1 h, without damage;
(c) Dry the fruits or the peeled cherry, avoiding the harmful effects of temperature,
in the shortest time up to the moisture content of 18% w.b. (below this moisture
content coffee is less susceptible to rapid deterioration); and
(d) Find a way to obtain a product with uniform color, size and density.
To understand how drying takes place and how to control the process, the coffee
grower and his coworkers need to be trained to properly perform all post-harvest
operations. It is fundamental that they understand the relationships between the
environment air and the coffee that is under the drying and storage processes. They
should be aware of how the changes in environment air (dry and humid) and
improper management of drying system affect coffee quality. The coffee grower
must understand that, as in nature the environment conditions (dry or humid) influ-
ence the drying process.
In nature, the coffee fruit, when ripe, dries on the plant, falls on the ground and
germinates. Good drying does not damage the seed germination. The speed at where
drying takes place will depend on the air conditions. The drier the air, faster the dry-
ing process. If there is no time control, the coffee may dry more than necessary,
depending on air temperature and humidity. In face of that, causing damage during
grain processing and unnecessary energy, labor and coffee weight loss.
For a better understanding of the drying process, one can start with a series of
questions:
1. To what extent should the coffee grower dry his coffee?
(a) The drying or removal of excess moisture must be done in such a way that
the product enters in equilibrium (does not lose or gain water) with the envi-
ronment air where it will be stored; and.
(b) It must be made in such a way as to preserve the appearance, the organolep-
tic quality in case of roasting grains, and seed viability for new coffee
plantations.
2. What to do to better understand the drying process?
(a) To understand how drying takes place, it is essential to understand the rela-
tionship between the drying air conditions (temperature and relative
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 19

h­ umidity) and the coffee. As in nature, it is the environment air conditions

(dry or humid) that cause drying or damage.
(b) Drying in the plant may or may not damage seeds germination. The drying
time will depend on the air conditions. The drier and hotter the air, faster the
drying process and greater the chances of damage to the product and
equipment.
3. What is relative humidity?
The air that naturally dries out the coffee is the same air we breathe and is com-
posed, roughly, of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon Gas and also Water Vapor.
Humidity is important because it humidify our nasal mucous membranes and
lungs. For each temperature condition, the air may contain a maximum amount
of water vapor. When this happens, we say that the air is saturated or with 100%
Relative Humidity. When the air is saturated, any small temperature dropping
leads to the condensation of the air humidity or the steam passing to the water
liquid form. As the saturated air cannot receive more moisture, it is not able to
dry any product.
If the system operators do not fully understand what Relative Humidity means,
they will have difficult to understand the drying process. For example, at 22 °C,
1 kg of air may contain a maximum of 17 g of water vapor. If the air contains
only 8.5 g of water vapor, we say that the relative humidity is 50%. The relative
humidity equals the amount of water the air contains, divided by the maximum
amount of water it could contain multiplied per 100. Therefore, the relative
humidity of our example would be: (8.5/17) × 100 = 50%.
If it is difficult to understand the theoretical meaning, they should try to under-
stand through sensitivity. Very dry air makes breathing difficult because of dry-
ness of the nasal mucous membranes. On the other hand, very humid air hinders
perspiration (much sweat) on the skin. Generally, the ideal environment air is the
one where we feel comfortable and we say that the climate is pleasant. In this
situation, the air temperature is around 20 °C and the relative humidity, around
62%. In general, relative humidity is lower during the day and higher at night. It
can also be said that during the day the air is drier and at night it is more humid.
In an environment with an average relative humidity of 62% and an average
temperature of 22 °C, the coffee will dry up to 12.5% moisture and remain at that
value for as long as it is exposed to that air. On the other hand, if the average
conditions are 50% relative humidity and 22 °C temperature, the coffee will dry
up to 11% moisture. If the relative humidity is 40%, the coffee will dry up to
9.5% moisture. In another scenario, if the average relative humidity is 80%, the
coffee will only dry up to 16% moisture. This happens a lot with the coffee dried
in table dryer or suspended terrace in mountain regions. If the conditions above
remain unchanged, the coffee will equilibrate with the air and will not lose or
gain moisture.
4. Why do the mechanical dryers dry faster than the solar terrace drying?
20 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

The coffee grower and his assistants should be instructed to understand a little
bit more about the drying process and the relationship between Relative Humidity
and Drying Air Temperature.
To facilitate, first let’s understand how the drying process in terrace dryer hap-
pens. Drying occurs with the terrace surface heating by solar rays and natural
ventilation to facilitate the removal of steam. Only after heating, at about nine
o’clock in the morning the coffee should be spread in the terrace, with a coffee
layer about 4 cm thick. Then, with a suitable tool, small lines should be made in
the direction of the operator’s shade and should be changed its position once the
exposed part of the terrace has heated up again. The coffee lines should be
changed each hour, preferably.
After the fourth or fifth day of drying, the coffee should be piled up at three
o’clock in the afternoon. The coffee yet heated needs to be covered with a system
of tarpaulin with thermal insulation to avoid getting humidification at night. The
next day, at nine o’clock in the morning, the coffee should be spread and stirred
as explained above and repeated until the end of drying process.
The exclusive use of solar terrace drying by many coffee growers is mainly
because of the non-care with the product qualitative characteristics after drying
or because of economic and technical level of the property. Therefore, sunny and
windy areas should be chosen for the solar terrace dryer construction.
In most producing regions, drying in solar terrace facilitates the development of
microorganisms on the surface of the fruits, fruit breathing and temperature
increasing, which are factors that accelerate the fermentation process. Despite
these risks, small and medium-size producers intensively use solar terrace dry-
ing as the only step for coffee drying.
If the climate conditions are propitious and the drying operation is done within
the technical recommendations, the natural coffee will be dry in 15–20 days and
the parchment coffee between 10 and 15 days.
Coffee drying in solar terrace drier is influenced by environment conditions
(insolation, ventilation and rainfall) and by handling operations. In the other
hand, coffee drying in the drier mechanized system has other influences, because
of that, the operator must understand that every time he heats the air (by furnaces
or burners), the heat will reduce the relative humidity of that air. Therefore, at the
entrance of the dryer it will be blowing warmer and drier air. With hot and dry
conditions, the air will have a greater capacity to remove water from the coffee,
even in unfavorable environmental conditions. So, artificial drying substantially
reduces the drying time.
The coffee drying process with hot air dryers is very similar to what happens
with hair drying, and in both of this cases, coffee and human hair, great care must
be taken with the air and temperature. Thus, if the air has a greater capacity of
drying, observing the maximum temperature that the product can support, less
time will be necessary to remove the extra water and leave the coffee with the
ideal humidity for commercialization.
5. What is the purpose of stirring the layer of coffee during the drying process?
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 21

This issue is like the previous ones, very important, not only for coffee, but for
cocoa and many other types of “grains”. To be realistic about the subject, the only
way to dry coffee fruit without proper stirring is when it is in the plant. In this case,
the drying is characterized as field drying and has its disadvantages.
One way to work with drying in the plant would be to spread properly the coffee
on a suspended screen. In this case, the height of the layer would be equivalent to
the diameter of the coffee fruits. The suspended screen must have natural ventilation
as in the field. On the other hand, a lack of homogeneity in drying will be noticed in
some way by a professional grader.
To simplify the drying theory, we can say that a layer of coffee dries as if it were
composed by a superposition of several thin layers. Also, a thin layer of coffee can
be considered to be one whose thickness corresponds to the diameter of the coffee
fruit or the grain thickness of the coffee parchment.
Assuming that the cherry coffee has a diameter of 1.0 cm and the coffee parch-
ment a thickness of 0.5 cm, a “Fixed bed “ type dryer containing a 50 cm layer of
the product should be analyzed as if was composed of 50 thin layers of coffee fruit
or approximately 100 thin layers of parchment coffee.
In this “drying layer”, the drying air (heated or at environment temperature)
enters the lower part through the first thin layer, which is on the false floor (perfo-
rated plate) and is released into the environment (exhaust) after passing through the
thin layer (layer 50 for coffee fruits or layer 100 for parchment grain, in the given
example).
When drying in a “fixed or stationary layer” dryer, the air enters hot and dry, then
is exhausted cold (less hot) and moist from the upper surface of the coffee layer.
Simplifying a little bit more, the air goes through the entire layer of coffee and
passes through each thin layer, this way the air is cooled and humidified by the
water released from the grains of the previous thin layer.
If you understood what it was exposed so far, you may think that it is not neces-
sary to stir the coffee inside a dryer, since all the coffee is dry with the same mois-
ture content. This statement is the big problem; all the coffee hit the equilibrium
moisture with drying air at high temperature and low relative humidity, therefore
with very dry air. To better understand what happens when we heat or cool the air,
we accept that natural or heated air is the medium for drying grain. The natural air
consists of a mixture of gases (nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc.), steam and a
number of contaminants such as solid particulate matter and other gases.
Dry air exists when the natural air removes all steam water and contaminants.
The dry air composition is relatively constant, despite small variations due to geo-
graphic location and altitude. Knowing about air humidity conditions is extremely
important to many sections of human activity.
Preservation of products such as fruits, vegetables, eggs and others in refrigera-
tion systems depends on mainly in an appropriate blend (dry air/water vapor).
Storage and handling of grains, including coffee, are also limited by atmospheric
conditions.
Sometimes the thermal comfort index of an atmosphere depends more on the
amount of steam present in the air than on the temperature itself. Thus, an air
22 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

conditioning apparatus promotes greater humidity control and only minor variations
in the environment temperature value. For those reasons, the detailed study of the
dry air mixture (N2 + O2 + CO2 + others) and water steam became a discipline,
called psychometry, which studies the relationships, from measurements of specific
parameters, atmospheric behavior, mainly in reference to the mixture of dry air and
water steam or moist air. A study on psychometry is recommended.
For a better understanding, suppose that in a coffee farm, during the drying sea-
son, using fixed bed dryer with the following conditions: environment temperature
and relative humidity are 22 °C and 62%, respectively. If the air in this condition is
passed through a 50 cm coffee layer for 250 h, for example, all coffee would be
dried at moisture of 12.5%. It turns out that a moist coffee, even spending 250 h to
dry, may have suffered some fermentation in the upper layers and damaged the final
product quality. To speed up the drying process, the best solution is to increase the
drying air temperature.
Now imagine that the coffee grower decided to raise the drying temperature to
40 °C. In this case, the relative humidity of the drying air becomes 25%. This way,
after a certain time, the mass of coffee will be dried and reached a final moisture
content humidity of 7%. All the coffee mass is homogeneous in temperature and
moisture content; however, in this situation the coffee beans are very dry and they
may break while processing, causing great financial loss due to the loss of weight
and energy consumption.
To solve part of the fixed bed drying problem, the engineer must plan the size of
the maximum height of the grain layer equal to the thickness of the drying front and
tolerating gradients of temperature and moisture content for a particular grain. The
most common grain, allowing a gradual variation in the moisture content is field
corn and higher than three percentage points between the driest and the wettest lay-
ers for an average final moisture content of 14% w.b.
Unfortunately, for a quality coffee, the maximum tolerance is an average 0.5
percentage points from an average moisture content of 12% w.b. and can be mea-
sured by a good moisture meter. If the moisture variation between the grains
increases, the coffee will present one of the most serious defects, which is the
“bad roast”.
Thus, it is almost impossible to dry coffee and some types of grains without the
proper stirring of the layers, especially if the temperature of the drying air is 5 °C
above environment temperature and the relative humidity is well below 50%.
Therefore, the coffee must be continuously stirred in special dryers or depending on
the temperature and airflow, every 2 h in the maximum.
For a better understanding, assume that the “fixed bed” dryer is operated with air
at 40 °C in environment conditions (22 °C and 62% relative humidity). At 40 °C, the
relative humidity of the drying air will be 25%. After a period of time (10 h for
instance), the coffee in the first thin layer will have reached a final moisture of 7%
and in this time the upper thin layers will still be drying.
If the operator stops the dryer for samples withdrawn because the upper layers
have reached 12% moisture, it will discharge the dryer with the coffee mass having
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 23

an average moisture content of 9.5% under a moisture gradient of five points

between the first and last thin layer.
Now imagine that the operator takes samples from different layers of the coffee
bed and stops drying when the average moisture content reaches 12%. In this case,
the upper layers may be more than 17% w.b. e and the first layer 7%. Drying is a
physical process, and, in that way, it cannot be simplified without something wrong
happening.
We must remember that the grains moisture content classification does not mea-
sure the moisture of each grain, individually. It provides the average value of the
sample. Inadequate drying will only be noticed during the processing and, espe-
cially, in the coffee roasting for beverage classification.
Depending on the drying air temperature, airflow, initial moisture and the height
of the layer inside the drying chamber, the process takes place on a band or front
that moves from the bottom upwards. The dryer designers call this band as drying
front, indicating that, after several hours of drying, the drying front has formed and
it has already moved. Below the drying front, the entire product is dry and in equi-
librium with the drying air and below the front there is no more drying.
As drying time passes (50 h, for example), the drying front will have passed
through the entire grain layer and the whole product will be dried with the same
moisture content or at equilibrium with the drying air. Therefore, to avoid over-­
drying of the grain bed or to avoid large gradients of moisture, it is necessary that
the grain layer is not too deep or that a stirring is done every 3 h of drying at least.
In Brazil, according to technological aspects involved, basically two methods are
used to dry coffee: in terrace drying, the product is spread on floors, which can be
built with cement, brick, and asphalt or similar; in mechanical drying, the heated air
is forced to pass through the mass of grains.
For drying, with most of the traditional coffee dryers, the initial moisture and
exudation of the mucilage by the fruits stop the operation of stirring the product
inside the dryer. To solve this problem, a pre-drying in solar terrace pre-dryers is
necessary.
More recently, drying in combination (pre-dryer/dryer and silo-dryer) has been
studied and applied in specific locations of the Zona da Mata in Minas Gerais
(Brazil). In those drying combination, the coffee it is pre-dried in solar terrace pre-­
dryers and the complementary drying in silo with natural ventilation or with the
slightly heated air. All these systems will be detailed, later, in order to serve as
alternatives to be adopted in different regions.
It must be remembered that at harvesting time, coffee presents 100% of its qual-
ity potential and that it is during the first 3 days after harvest that special care must
be taken. If the harvested coffee is well maintained until the third day after harvest-
ing and further operations have been carried out correctly, it will maintain high
quality until it reaches the consumer. On the other hand, coffee where in the third or
fourth day after harvest, had reduced its potential quality in 15%, continues to dete-
riorate until the product reaches safe storage moisture content. From the point of
drying, the two types of coffee had proportionally, the same variation in quality
reduction. Therefore, if the coffee is dried to a safe moisture level by the third day
24 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

after harvesting, the coffee grower can deliver a quality product to the final c­ ostumer.
A safe humidity is 18% w.b. at this moisture level coffee can be dried slowly with
air and at low temperatures during the storage period in the farm.
In most coffee producing regions, drying in solar terrace facilitates the develop-
ment of microorganisms, increasing temperature and breathing of the product,
which accelerates the fermentation process. Despite of these risks, small and
medium-sized coffee producers intensively use solar terrace drying as the only dry-
ing technique.
However, if the climate conditions are suitable and the operation of the terrace is
done within the technical recommendations, the natural coffee will be dry in
15–20 days and the peeled cherry coffee between 10 and 15 days. Therefore, drying
systems that safely dry the product at 18% moisture content, within 3 days or 50 h
of drying, must be adopted.
Drying with efficient techniques presents the following advantages:
(a) Allows better harvest control;
(b) Allows storage for longer periods, without the danger of deterioration or qual-
ity loss;
(c) In case of coffee seed production, low temperature drying keeps the germina-
tion for longer periods of time;
(d) Prevents the development of microorganisms and insects; and,
(e) Minimizes the loss of the product on the trees or in solar terraces during
rainy days.
As we know drying affects the product and is a process involving the heat trans-
ferring and moisture between the coffee and drying air. The reader should review
the basic elements of psychometry, grain water content, equilibrium moisture con-
tent, air flow rate, drying speed, grading and coffee quality, in order to take full
advantage of drying techniques and reduce production costs.
Because is too difficult to address all the points above in a single chapter, we will
deal with some of the most important:

5 Coffee Moisture Content

The concept of moisture content (water content) is due to the fact that both fruits
and grains are composed of solid substances and a certain amount of water, under
many forms. For harvesting, drying and storage operations, the product is consid-
ered to consist only of dry matter and water. Thus, water or moisture content is the
amount of water present in the coffee or grain in general.
The water content is considered the most important factor that acts in the deterio-
ration process of stored grains. It is necessary to know the moisture content of cof-
fee beans since harvest until the final processing. We must know that, with the
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 25

removal of the protective layers, the coffee is very susceptible to the absorption of
odors. As the drying air in the coffee dryers is generally heated by wood burning,
the removal of excess water from the pre-processed coffee is an operation that can
contaminate the product with smoke. Also, because of the necessity to obtain a
homogeneous product, it is not possible to mix coffees with different moisture con-
tent in same dryers and at the same time. Thus, the operator needs to be careful to
dry the coffee only till the needed moisture content level. Otherwise, excess of
water removal will cause breakage problems in the hulling process.
It is very important to know the coffee moisture content before hulling. If the
product has excess of moisture, it must be dried to approximately 12% w.b. In case
of over drying, the product should go through a ventilation by a vented bin at night
to absorb water until moisture content of 12% w.b.
Therefore, from the harvest until the final processing, knowing the water content
of the coffee is extremely important. The purchase of a product with excess mois-
ture content represents losses for the buyer, who will be paying for excess water and
in possible danger for the final quality of the product during storage. Selling below
ideal moisture will cause losses for seller as he experiences unnecessary energy
costs and equipment use, also affecting coffee quality.
As a process applied to biologically active materials, coffee drying can be defined
as a universal method of conditioning the product (coffee or grains in general) by
removing the water to a level that keeps them in balance with the storage environ-
ment. In the same way preserving the appearance and quality for the roasting indus-
try, and the viability as seed.
As a hygroscopic material, the coffee beans contain liquid water, which is in
direct contact with the cellular structure, but is easily evaporated in the presence of
air with low relative humidity. This water is known as “free water”. Another portion
of water, called water of constitution, also composing the cellular structure, is
chemically attached to the material.
During drying, most of the evaporated water is “free water.” To make it easy to
understand, it will be considered here that the coffee beans are composed only of
dry matter and free water.
The grains moisture content is expressed by the ratio between the quantities of
water and dry matter that form the product. Lower moisture content is the most
important factor in preventing the deterioration of stored coffee. Keeping the water
or moisture content and coffee temperature low, it will prevent microorganism
attacks and breathing will have their effects minimized.
The operator must always be aware that at the end of drying the product does not
lose excess water, causing problems in handling, processing and marketing.
Ideally, moisture content should be determined prior to each subsequent drying
operation. If there is problem with moisture content when starting a new operation,
use the solutions previously advised.
26 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

5.1 Coffee Moisture Content Calculation

As said earlier, the amount of water contained in the grains is designated based on the
weight of the water and is generally expressed as a percentage. There are two ways to
express the moisture contained in a product, that is, wet basis (w.b.) and dry basis (d.b.).
The grain moisture contained in the wet basis is the ratio of the water weight (Pa)
present in the sample to the total weight (Pt) of this sample:

U  100  Pa / Pt  (1.1)

Pt   Pms  Pa   total weight (1.2)

Where:
U = moisture content. % w.b.
Pa = Water weight;
Pt = Total weight of the sample;
Pms = Dry matter weight.
The percentage of the moisture content in dry basis is determined by the ratio of
water weight (Pa) and dry matter weight (Pms):

U   100  Pa / Pms  (1.3)

U   Moisture content on dry basis  d.b. 

From the equations, it is clear that the moisture content expressed in dry basis is
numerically higher than the moisture content on the wet basis (U′ > U). This is
because in the second case (U′), with only Pms, the denominator is lower than in the
first case (U), where it represents the total grain weight (Pa + Pms), and in both
cases, the numerator remains constant (the water weight).
Usually, the wet basis percentage is used in commercial designations and pric-
ing. On the other hand, the moisture content in dry basis (decimal) is commonly
used in research and in specific calculations.

5.1.1 Moisture Content Base Changing

A conversion table is useful and precise when it is desired to change from the dry
base to the wet base and vice versa. The table can be constructed using the following
equations:
(a) Changing from w.b. for d.b.

U    U / 100  U   100 (1.4)

1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 27

Where:
U  %w.b.and U  %d.b.

Example: if U = 13% w.b., what will be the value of U′?

U  13 / 100  13   100  14.9%or 0.149 d.b.

(b) Changing from d.b. to w.b.

U   U  / 100  U    100 (1.5)

Example: if U′ = 0.13 or 13% d.b., what is the value of U?

U  13 / 100  13   100  11.5%w.b.

5.2 Moisture Content Determination methods

There are two methods group for grain moisture content determination: (a) direct or
basic (oven, distillation, evaporation, infrared radiation) and (b) indirect (electrical
methods, calibrated according to standard oven method or other direct method).

5.2.1 Direct or Basic Methods

By direct methods, the mass of water extracted from the product is related to the
mass of dry matter (moisture content, dry basis) or to the total mass of the original
material (moisture content, wet basis). Although they are considered standard meth-
ods, the direct methods require a longer time and meticulous work for their execu-
tion. Commonly used in quality control laboratory analysis the main ones are the
oven, distillation, evaporation (dweob) and infrared methods.

Oven

The determination of the moisture content by the oven method (under atmospheric
pressure or vacuum) is done by drying a sample of grains of known mass, calculat-
ing the moisture content through the mass lost during drying. The ratio between the
sample mass loss taken from the oven and its original mass, multiplied by 100, gives
the moisture content in percentage, wet basis (Eq. 1.1).
The drying time and the oven temperature are variable and depend on the type
and product conditions and the type of oven. To use of the standard method, the
28 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

reader should consult the manual “Rules for Seed Analysis”, which should be edited
by the responsible departments of each producing country.

Distillation

The grain moisture is removed by boiling a small sample in a vegetable oil bath or
in toluene, whose boiling temperature is much higher than the water. The water
steam from the sample is condensed, collected, and its weight or volume deter-
mined. There are two distillation methods: Toluene and Brown-Duvel. The Brown-­
Duvel is the most common, it will be described below and is one of the standard
methods in the United States of America. The equipment can be made of several
modules and the moisture is determined by the distillation process.
Sample size, temperature and exposure time change with grain type. It is there-
fore it is advised to consult the equipment manual before performing the moisture
determination.
The water is removed by heating a mixture of grains and vegetable oil until to the
boiling point. The boiling temperature of the oil is a lot higher than the water. The
water steam from the sample distillation is condensed and its volume determined.
Considering the water density as 1.0 g/cm3, the mass of the water withdrawn is
equal to the volume measured by a graduated cylinder. Commercial Brown Duvel
has a thermometric system that automatically shuts down the heating source when
the oil reaches a specific temperature for each type of product.
Despite the many types of moisture meters (direct or indirect) available in the
market, they are relatively expensive and often suppliers do not provide appropriate
technical assistance. Due to this fact the DWEOB (Direct water Evaporation in Oil
Bath) was developed. This method is nothing more than a simplification of Brown
Duvel. It is inexpensive and has the same precision of the standard method.
Figure 1.10 shows a simplified scheme of the DWEOB method, which can be built
with regular and laboratory tools such as thermometer and a scale with a capacity of
500 g with an accuracy of 0.5 g, or better, and actually putting together the
DWEOB system.
In order to determine humidity through DWEOB, the operator needs to follow
the following steps according to the next examples:
Example 1: Determine the moisture content of a coffee sample using the
DWEOB. Procedures:

(a) Sampling the coffee production correctly;

(b) Weigh 100 g of the coffee and place it in a high temperature resistant container
with 10 cm diameter and 20 cm high, and a perforated lid (screen type) with a
larger hole to insert a graduated thermometer up to 200 °C;
(c) Add soybean oil until it covers the coffee layer;
(d) Weigh the container + product (coffee sample) + oil + thermometer and take a
note of the initial mass (Mi);
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 29

Fig. 1.10 Schematic of a DWEOB (moisture meter) with gas flame. Source: Authors

Table 1.2 Temperature for moisture content determination by the DWEOB method
Product Temp. (°C) Product Temp. (°C)
Beans 175 Corn 195
Rougth rice 200 Soybean 135
Hulled rice 195 Sorghum 195
Dry coffee fruit 200 Wheat 190
Hulled coffee 190

(e) Heat the container for approximately 15 min until it reaches the temperature
indicated in Table 1.2 (in the case of the hulled coffee, 190 °C). Then remove
the heat source, wait for the bubbling to cease and perform the weighing to
obtain the final mass (Mf); and.
(f) The result of Mi − Mf is the moisture content in percentage, wet basis.
For example, if Mi = 458.9 g and M f = 445.4 g;
Ma  Mi  Mf  13.5 g.

i.e., the moisture content of the coffee batch is 13.5% w.b.
Example 2: represent, in decimal dry basis (d.b.), the moisture content found
in wet basis percentage (w.b.) in the previous problem.
Solution: According to Eq. (1.4):
U %   ?

U  %   13.5%.

U  %   13.5 / 100  13.5   .100  15.6%or 0.156 d.b.
30 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

5.2.2  ources of Error with Direct Methods of Moisture

S
Content Determination

Considered primary or secondary standards, direct methods are subject to errors.

The main ones are:
–– Incomplete drying;
–– Oxidation of the material;
–– Sampling errors;
–– Weighing errors; and.
–– Observation errors.
Figure 1.11 shows the weight variation of the sample using a direct method.
Three phases are identified to illustrate the first two types of errors. In the first stage,
the grains gradually lose water, while in the second drying phase (the sample weight
remains constant) because all the “free water” has been removed.
Prolonging the time after the second phase, new weight loss begins to occur due
to sample oxidation. If the process is interrupted in the first or third phase, an error
will happen. Therefore, the interruption needs to take place in the second phase,
when there is no change in the sample weight.
Sampling Errors: The purpose of a sample is to represent a population or a big
amount of certain product. If sampling is not performed according to proper tech-
niques, the value obtained will be not reliable even using the most reliable method.
Weighing errors: The use of inappropriate or inaccurate scales leads to errors
while determining moisture. The weighing of samples yet hot, causes convection
currents and really affect the final result.
In order to better characterize the product moisture content, the samples weigh-
ing and the reading in the equipment must be made by a single person. Depending
on the equipment type, a reading between two known values done by different peo-
ple will hardly have the same value.

Fig. 1.11 Sample weight

variation, in function of the
time, by direct methods.
Source: Authors
Weight reduction

Drying End
of Oxidation
period drying

Drying time
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 31

5.3 Indirect Methods for Moisture Content Determination

The most important are the electrical methods. The equipment classified in this
category uses a grain property that varies with its moisture content and is always
calibrated according to a direct method adopted as the official standard.
Because of high speed of the moisture content measurement, electrical or elec-
tronic moisture meters are used in the control of drying, storage and in commercial
transactions. This equipment provides the value of the moisture content on a wet
basis. It shows the percentage relation between the amount of water and the total
mass of the sample, according to Eq. (1.1).

5.3.1 Electrical Resistance Method

The electrical conductivity of a biological material varies with its moisture content.
In the case of grains, the moisture content (U) is inversely proportional to the loga-
rithm of the resistance they offer to the passage of an electric flowing. In a given
moisture range, the moisture contained in a grain sample can be given by Eq. (1.6).

U  K 1 / log R  (1.6)

On what:
U = moisture content;
K = constant depending on the material; and.
R = electrical resistance.
It is known that the electrical resistance of a material varies according to its tem-
perature and that, unlike metals, an increase in temperature promotes a decrease in
electrical resistance in the carbon. Since the grains are basically composed of car-
bon, measuring with equipment based on the principle of electrical resistance, the
operator needs to take care of the sample temperatures. High temperatures can
induce errors (high temperature results in a low electrical resistance, which in turn
means high humidity). Therefore, it is necessary to make the temperature correction.
The electrical resistance also depends on the pressure made by the electrodes on
the grain sample. The higher the pressure over sample, the lower the electrical resis-
tance, which will influence the correct value of the moisture content. That way, each
type of grain, using the same moisture meter, must be subjected to a specific pres-
sure (read the equipment catalog).
Usually, commercial tools show better results for samples with low moisture
content (10–20% w.b.).
When using equipment based on electrical resistance, the following points
should be observed:
1. Refer to the equipment manual. Each type of grain requires a specific technique
and the reading cannot be repeated with the same sample. Once passed by mea-
suring it is damaged by the compression system.
32 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

2. Sampling techniques must be followed.

3. At each determination the electrodes must go thorough cleaning.
4. Periodically adjust the compression system. It is subject to relatively high efforts
and may suffer serious malfunctions.
5. Beware of hot samples. To avoid errors, it is important to keep the samples in
repose for some time (homogenizing the moisture inside the beans) and wait
until their temperature is close to the moisture meter temperature.
6. In case of grains with wet surface by condensation or rain, it will have moisture
content above the real value.
7. Moisture meters shall be periodically evaluated and, if necessary, re-calibrated
using a direct method.

5.3.2 Dielectric Method

The dielectric properties of biological materials depend on their moisture content.

The capacitance of a capacitor is influenced by the dielectric properties of the mate-
rials placed between its plates. Thus, by determining the variations of the capacitor
electric capacitance, whose dielectric is represented by a mass of grains, one can
indirectly determine its moisture content.
The variation of the dielectric capacity (D) and the moisture content (U) of the
grains are given by Eq. (1.7).

U  DC (1.7)

On what
D = dielectric;
C = constant depending on the equipment, material etc.; and,
U = moisture content.
The moisture meter based on this principle are quick and easy to operate. Unlike
electrical resistance systems, they do not damage grain samples.
To properly use a dielectric or capacitive moisture meter, the operator must pay
attention to the following recommendations:
1. Since some moisture meters also measure a small electrical resistance, they are
considered more accurate in the determination of lower moisture contents. This
method allows measuring the samples moisture content, even hot, due to the
effect of temperature is lower than that observed in the electric resistance method.
2. Sampling techniques must be followed.
3. Proper sample temperature correction is required.
4. Damping the sample into the moisture meter chamber must be made from the
same height and with care. There are moisture meters that have automatic devices
for weighing and loading samples.
5. Voltage fluctuations can harm the operation and the equipment should be stan-
dardized frequently according to the equipment manual.
1 Harvesting, Drying and Storage of Coffee 33

6. Moisture meters shall be periodically evaluated and, if necessary, calibrated by a

direct method.
7. For each type of grain there is a specific table for moisture content evaluation.
8. The manufacturer’s instructions must be followed correctly.

6 Equilibrium Moisture Content

The concept of Equilibrium Moisture content is important because it is directly

related to the coffee drying and storage also other agricultural products. It is useful
in order to know if the coffee will gain or lose moisture, depending on the tempera-
ture and relative humidity of the drying air or the environment where it is stored.
When the rate of moisture loss from the product to the environment is equal the
grain to the environment, it is said that the product is in equilibrium with the air. The
moisture of the product, when in equilibrium with the environment, is called equi-
librium moisture content or hygroscopic equilibrium. The equilibrium moisture is,
therefore, the moisture that is observed after the grains are exposed for long period
of time to a certain environmental condition.
The equilibrium moisture content of a coffee sample is a function of temperature,
relative humidity and the physical conditions of the product. For example, the dried
coffee fruit, parchment coffee and hulled coffee have different equilibrium moisture
contents for the same environmental conditions.
The relationship between the moisture of a given product and the corresponding
equilibrium relative humidity for a given temperature can be expressed by the
curves (Fig. 1.12a). In Fig. 1.12b, we can observe the representation of the hyster-
esis phenomenon, where it is verified that the values of the equilibrium moisture
content are not equal when the coffee gain water (adsorption) and when water is lost
(desorption).
The rate of adsorption of water by the coffee is a lot slower than the rate of
desorption, which causes the phenomenon of hysteresis to happen between the dry-
ing curve and the product rewetting.
The mathematical relation most used to represent the equilibrium isotherms is
given by Eq. (1.8):

1 UR  exp.  C T  Ue  n  (1.8)

Where:
UR—relative humidity, decimal;
exp. – ln base = 2718;
T—Absolute temperature, K;
Ue—equilibrium moisture % d.b.; and,
C and n—constants that depend on the material.
34 J. de Sousa e Silva et al.

Fig. 1.12 Equilibrium isotherms with T1 < T2 < T3 (a) and Hysteresis phenomenon (b).
Source: Authors

From Eq. (1.8) and Fig. 1.12a it is observed that:

–– The equilibrium “moisture content” is zero for relative humidity equal to zero;
–– The equilibrium “relative humidity” is close to 100% when the product moisture
content increases to 100%; and.
–– The slope of the curve tends to infinity when the humidity tends to 100%.
The relation between the Ueq value and the air conditions (temperature and rela-
tive humidity) can also be represented by the following Equation:

 
Ueq  a  b ln    T  c  ln RH  (1.9)

Where:
a, b and c = constants that depend on the product (Table 1.3);
T = air temperature (°C);
RH = relative humidity (decimal); and,
Ueq = equilibrium moisture content (decimal, d.b.).

7 Airflow

When the grains lose moisture during the drying process, the water, in form of
steam, is carried by the airflow that passes through the grains layer. To properly
design and operate a coffee drying system, the fundamental principles of air move-
ment need to be understood, especially those related to static pressure, fan charac-
teristics and system operating conditions.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
thousand conventionalities they have set about us to complicate us.
We are not complicated. It is only the laws that make us appear so.
"That first of our two nights on the cliffs, did you find me
complicated or difficult of understanding? I showed, as well as gave
you myself and this is how you have treated that revelation. I will
not let it make me unhappy. It could so deeply if I allowed it to get
the upper hand. If I need anything now, now that I know I am going
to have a child--don't be frightened yet, I only feel it in my heart--do
you think it is help or advice for concealment? Do you think it is any
assistance to me to know that all the world will be ashamed of me,
but only you are not?
"Why do you even hint about shame to me? Did you think I
shared what you call your weakness? Did you think for those
moments that, as you say of yourself, I forgot or lost restraint?
"Never write to me again. Unfortunately for me, it is you most
of all who could succeed in making me feel ashamed and I will not
be ashamed. What lies before me is not to be endured but to be
made wonderful. Will shame help me to do that?
"Perhaps you think I am an extraordinary woman. You say to
yourself, 'Well, if that's her nature, it can't be helped, we've got to
go through with it.' You would not believe me if I told you that all
women in their essence are the same. It is only with so many that
the prize of self-advancement, the hollow dignity of social position,
the chimera--I don't know if I've spelt it right--of good repute, all of
which you offer them if they obey the laws you have made to
protect your property, are more attractive and alluring than the pain
and discomfort and difficulty of bringing children into a competitive
world. But you call this the line of least resistance.
 "Because you find the majority of women so ready to be slaves
to your laws do you imagine that they are not in essence the same
as me? But starve one of those women as I and my sisters have
been starved by circumstance, deny to her the first function which
justifies her existence by the side of men with their work, as
thousands and thousands are denied, taking in the end any husband
who will fulfill their needs of life, and you will find her behave as I
behaved.
"I have to thank you for one thing. Since I met you, my mind
has opened out and in a lot of things, such as these which I am
writing, I can think in words what a lot of women only feel but
cannot express. I have to thank you too, that for those moments I
loved. So many women don't even do that, not as they understand
love.
"All that time together, playing golf, walking and talking on the
cliffs, I felt our minds were at one. That with a woman is the
beginning of love. All unities follow inevitably after that. It is not so
with men. Your letters prove it to me. Perhaps this is why the
formality of marriage is so necessary to make a screen for shame. I
wonder if you realize in how many married women it is a screen and
no more. I know now that to my own mother it was no more than
that.
"I had no shame then. I loved. Loving no longer, I still now have
no shame because, and believe me it is not in anger, we have no
cause to meet again. I know I am going to have a child. I know he is
going to be wonderful if I can make him so. I shall get my love from
him as he grows in years and I am sure there is only one love.
Passion is only an expression of it. My life will be fuller than yours
with all the possessions you have. Bringing him up into the world will
absorb the whole heart of me.
"Oh, my dear--I feel a great moment of pain to think what we
have lost and truly I do not forget my gratitude for what I have
gained. Never worry yourself in your thoughts by what you imagine I
shall have to face. I know what my sisters will say, but what they will
say will be no expression of the envy they will feel. I am quite
human enough to find much courage in that.
"When it comes, I expect I shall leave Bridnorth. I confess I am
not a Bombastes. I shall hide my shoes in my cupboard, but none
shall step into them, nevertheless.
"I hate to say this and do not say it in any backbiting spirit. I
know you will think you have to support me. You have not.
Fortunately my share of what we girls have is enough to support me
and enable me to bring him up as I mean him to be brought up. So
please send me nothing. It would hurt me to hurt you by returning
it.
"I do not think I can say any more. I count them up--six sheets
of paper. Yet I believe you will read them all.
"Good-by."

IV

In the appointed time, Mary knew that the reality of her life had
come to her. At the first opportunity after the sureness of her
knowledge, she attended Holy Communion in Bridnorth church. It
was not so much to pray she went, as to wait in that silence which
falls, even upon the unimaginative mind, during the elevation of the
host and all the accompanying ceremony of the rubric.
She asked no favor of her God. She waited. She said no prayers.
She listened. It was a spiritual communion, beyond the need of
symbols, above the necessity of words. Psychology has no function
to describe it. It was her first absolute submission of both mind and
body to the mystery of life. Here consciously, she felt she could do
nothing. Here, as it might be, was the instant of conception.
Whatever it was, whether it were God or Nature, this was the
moment in which she held herself in suspension, feeling she had no
conscious part to play.
When she rose from her knees, it was with an inner and hidden
knowledge of satisfaction that she had passed successfully through
some ordeal of her soul; that whatever it was within her, it had not
failed in the supreme test of her being; that, in a word, she was a
woman at last and that life had justified itself in her.
If such a moment there be as this instant of conception; if in
her soul where no words conceal and no thoughts have substance, a
woman can spiritually be aware of it, such an instant this was in the
life of Mary Throgmorton.
From this moment onward, she set her mind upon definite
things. In two months' time she had planned everything that she
was to do.
Passing once through Warwickshire lanes one summer when she
had been staying with friends in Henley-in-Arden, a storm of rain
had driven them for shelter. They had come to the towpath of the
canal near by where it flows into the lock at Lonesome Ford when
the clouds that had been threatening all day heaped up to thunder
and broke above them with a sudden deluge of rain.
Sharply from the towpath where they walked, the ground rose
in high banks of apple orchard, through the trees of which, on the
top of the hill, could just be seen the half-timbered gables of an old
farmhouse.
Taking a gap in the hedge and climbing the orchard hill, they
had hastened there for shelter. It was close upon tea-time. The
farmer's wife had let them in.
She was a sour-visaged woman, slow and sparing of speech, yet
in the silent, considerate way she gave them welcome and tended to
their wants, there had been something intangible yet inviting that
attracted Mary to her.
With an expression upon her long, thin and deeply lined face
that suggested resentment to them all, she showed them into the
best parlor, the room that had its black horsehaired sofa, its
antimacassars on all the chairs, its glass cases containing, one a
stuffed white owl, the other a stuffed jay; the room where the family
Bible lay on a home-worked mat reposing on a small round table;
the room that had nothing to do with their lives, but was an outward
symbol of them as God-fearing and cleanly people.
In time Mary came to learn that with those who work upon the
land, there are no spare moments; that the duties and demands of
the earth know no Sabbath day of rest. That afternoon, she pictured
them on Sundays in that room, with hands folded in their laps,
reading perhaps with quaint intonations and inflections from the
massive volume on its crocheted mat. It was never as thus she saw
them.
 As they went by, catching a glimpse of the parlor kitchen with
its heavy beams of oak in the ceiling, she had wished they might
have had their tea there. But the old lady was too unapproachable
for her to ask such a favor then. In the best parlor they sat, eating
the bread and butter and homemade bullace jam which she had
brought them, commenting upon the enlarged photographs in their
gilt frames on the walls.
One picture there was of a young girl, a very early photograph
which had suffered sadly from unskillful process of enlargement. Yet
unskillful though it had been, the photograph had not been able to
destroy its certain beauty. Mary had called her friends' attention to it,
but it seemed they could not detect the beauty that she saw.
"I don't think a long face like that is beautiful in a woman," one
of them had said.
"I didn't mean the features," replied Mary. "She looks--"
She stopped, words came in no measure with her thoughts in
those days. But when the farmer's wife had returned later to inquire
if they wanted any more bread and butter cut, she questioned her
with an interest none could have resented as to who the girl might
be.
"Is she a daughter of yours?" asked Mary.
"Darter?" She shook her head and where another woman might
have smiled at the compliment of Mary's interest, she merely turned
her eyes upon the portrait as though she looked across the years at
some one who had gone away. "That was me," said she. "It was
took of me three days afore I was married. My old man had it out a
few years ago and got it made big like that. Waste of money I told
him."
 And with that, having learnt their needs, she went out of the
room.
It was later, when they had finished tea, and the sun was
striking through the lace curtains into that room, almost obliterating
its artificialities, when indeed they knew the storm was over, they
left the parlor and finding the farmer with his wife in the kitchen,
came there asking what they must pay.
"We beant settin' out to provide teas," she replied with no
gratuity of manner in her voice.
"I guess you didn't come lookin' for tea," said the farmer, who
had evidently talked it over with her and decided what they should
do and say--"The storm drove 'ee."
While her friends stood arguing upon the issue, Mary had
looked about her, observing the warm color of the brick-paved floor,
the homely sense of confidence in the open chimney with its seats at
either side, the jar of wild flowers, all mingled, that stood upon the
window sill, the farmer's gun on its rest over the mantel-shelf; then
the farmer and his wife themselves.
Once having seen that enlarged portrait, she knew well what it
was that attracted her to the sour visage, the uninviting expression
and the attenuated features of the farmer's wife. The girl she had
been, the wistful creature she had set out for company with through
life, somewhere, lurking, was in company with her still. She needed
the finding, that was all.
"Waste of money," she had told him. There lay much behind
that accusation; much that Mary if she had had time would have
liked to find out.
 The farmer himself, at first glance, would have taken the heart
of any one. He smiled at them as he spoke with an ingenuous
twinkle of good humor in his eyes. A mere child he was; a child of
the land. Such wisdom as he had, of the land it was. The world had
nothing of it. His thoughts, his emotions, they were in the soil itself.
Adam he was, turned out of his garden, scarce conscious of the
flaming sword that had driven him from the fruitful places, but
seeking the first implement his hands could find to toil with and
bring the earth to good account.
Unable to persuade these two that they should give any return
for the meal they had had, they expressed their gratitude as best
they could and went away. It was not until they had come back
through the sloping orchard and were again upon the towing path of
the canal, that Mary thought of the possibility of returning there at
some other time.
The simplicity of the life of those two, the sense she had had of
that nearness to the earth they lived on had touched her imagination
deeper than she knew.
"Just wait for me a moment," said she. "I must go back--"
when, before they could ask her reason, she had left them and was
running back through the orchard.
The door which led into the parlor kitchen was opened to her
knocking by the farmer's wife. Face to face with her purpose, she
stammered in confusion as she spoke.
"I know you don't think of supplying teas or anything like that,"
she said awkwardly--"but I do so like your--your farm, your house
here, that I wondered if there'd ever be any chance of coming back
again for a little while; staying here I mean. I wondered if you would
let me a room and--if there'd be any trouble about providing me
with meals, then let me get them for myself. I should like to come
here so much that I had to come back, just to ask."
With no change of expression, no sign of pleasure at Mary's
appreciation of their home, the farmer's wife looked round at her
husband still seated at his tea and said,
"Well--what do 'ee think, Mr. Peverell?"
His mouth was full. He passed the back of his hand across it in
the effort of swallowing to make way for words and then, as best he
could, he mumbled,
"'Tis for you to say, Missis. 'Twon't stop me milking cows or
cuttin' barley."
She turned to Mary.
"'Ee'd have a mighty lot to do for 'eeself," she had said--"If 'ee
come, 'twould be no grand lodging. 'Ee'd be one of us."
What better, she had thought. To be one of them was to be one
with everything about them, the fruit trees in the orchards, the dead
leaves and the new. Even then, although she never knew it clearly,
the fruitful scents of the earth had entered and for long were to
linger in her nostrils.
It was not that she had any knowledge of the soil, or could have
explained to herself how one crop should follow another. She knew
nothing of the laws a farmer lives by, the servant of Nature that he
is, or the very earth he grows to be a part of and learns to finger as
it were the very ingredient of his being.
She had not been trained to reason. All that she felt of the
attraction of that place did not suggest itself in the direct
progression of purposes to her mind. There were the odors of life in
the air. She took them in through her senses alone. Through her
senses alone she knew their fecundity. That fruitfulness it was which
filtered like drops of some magic elixir into her blood.
It had been two years since she went that day to Yarningdale
Farm, yet the odors still lingered, calling some sense and purpose in
her soul which, until the sermon at that Christmas-time and
following her meeting with Liddiard, had been all vague, illusive and
intangible.
Now, with more assurance, she knew. In that old farmhouse, if
they would have her, she was going to bring her child into the world.
There, in what seemed not the long but the speedy months to her,
she was going to breathe in the scents of the earth, absorbing the
clean purposes of life as they are set forth in the tilling of the soil,
the sowing of the seed, the reaping of the harvest.
It was to be close to the very earth itself she needed. There is
no clear line of argument to trace in a woman's mind. Her marriage
bed had been the heathered moors. The scent of the earth had been
all about her as she lay in Liddiard's arms. No soft or spotless pillows
had there been for her head to rest on. In no garments had she
decked herself for his embrace. No ceremony had there been, no
formalities observed. There was nothing that had happened to
associate it in her mind with the conventional wedding night, blessed
by the church, approved of by all.
If blessing there had been, and truly she felt there had, then
the stars had blessed them, the soft wind from off the sea across
the heather roots had touched her with its fingers; the dark night
with all its silence had been full approval in her heart.
 And he who was to come out of such a union as that, what else
could he be but a wild, uncultivated thing? A seed falling from the
tree, not sowed by the hand of man in exotic places; a young shoot
finding its soil in the rotting fibers of earth that only Nature had
prepared; a green bough that Nature only in her wildest could train,
fighting its way upwards through the forest shades to the clear
brilliance of the eternal light.
Such she felt he was. As such she meant him to be. There was
no science in her purpose, no clear argument of thought. No reason
other than this first impression she had had can be traced to justify
the determination to which she came.
To Mrs. Peverell she wrote asking if they could let her have their
little room beneath the eaves of the thatch when, hearing it was
vacant, she replied that she would come down for a day or two and
see them first.
But before she went, one thing had she set herself to perform.
Now her sisters must know. Her mind was prepared. It was Hannah
she determined to tell.

It was a morning in the middle of the week, after the children's

lessons were over. With eyes that recorded intangible impressions to
her mind, Mary watched her eldest sister kissing each one as they
went. With each one, it was not merely a disposal, but a parting; not
a formality but an act, an act that had its meaning, however far
removed it might have been from Hannah's appreciation of it.
"What do you feel about those children?" she asked her,
suddenly and unexpectedly when the last one had gone and the
door had closed.
"Feel about them?"
Hannah looked up in surprised bewilderment.
"I've never thought what I felt," she added. "They're darlings--is
that what you mean?"
"No--that's not quite what I mean. Of course they're darlings.
Do you ever think what you feel, Hannah?"
"No."
"Never think in words--all higgledy-piggledy and upside-down,
of course--but words that explain to you, even if they couldn't
explain to anybody else?"
"No."
"I don't believe any of us have ever done that," Mary continued-
-"unless perhaps Jane. She thinks in words sometimes, I believe, but
I'm sure they hurt her when she does, so she probably does it as
little as possible. Just to say they're darlings doesn't convey what
you feel. You don't know what you do really feel--do you?"
"No--I suppose I don't."
"I expect that's why, when you have to deal with real things
where words only can explain, they come like claps of thunder and
are all frightening. I've got something to tell you that will frighten
you, Hannah. But it wouldn't have frightened you so much if you'd
ever thought about those children in words. I don't believe it would
frighten Jane. It would only make her angry."
 "What is it?" asked Hannah. She was not frightened as yet.
Mary's voice was so quiet, her manner so undisturbed and assured,
that as yet no faint suspicion of what she was to hear was troubling
her mind.
"Let's come out into the garden," said Mary.
Even there, with that issue, she felt she wanted the light of
open air, the growing things about her, the environment her whole
body now was tuned to. That room was confined, and suffocating to
her. There were the two portraits on the wall, who never, with all
their love, would be able to understand what she had to tell. There
were the echoes of countless family prayers that had had no
meaning. There was all the atmosphere of conventional formality in
which she felt neither she nor her child had any place. It was of him
she was going to tell. She could not tell it there.
"Come out into the garden," she repeated and herself led the
way, when there being something to hear which already Mary had
wrapped in this mystery of introduction, Hannah could do no less
than follow with obedience.
It was between those borders, now massed white with double
pinks, softening the air with the scent of them as they breathed it in,
that they walked, just as Jane and she had done before.
"Do you ever wish you'd had a child, Hannah?" Mary asked
presently, and Hannah replied--
"I don't think I've ever really wanted to be married."
So much was it an answer that would have satisfied her once,
that Mary smiled to think how different she had become. Not for one
moment had it been her meaning that Hannah should see that smile.
Not for one moment would she have understood it. Yet she saw. The
sudden seizing of her fingers on Mary's arm almost frightened.
"You smiled," she whispered--"Why did you smile?"
The honest simplicity of her brought Mary to a sudden
confusion. She could not answer. Seeing that smile, Hannah had
caught her unawares in her thoughts. She knew then she was going
to hurt this gentle creature with her simple view of life and her
infinite forbearance of the world's treatment of her.
Here was the first moment when truly she felt afraid. Here was
the first time she realized that pain is the inevitable accompaniment
of life. She tried to begin what she had to say, but fear dried up the
words. She moistened her lips, but could not speak.
"Tell me why you smiled," repeated Hannah importunately.
"What is it you've got to say?"
Mary had thought it would be easy. So proud, so sure she was,
that abruptness had seemed as though it must serve her mood. She
tried to be abrupt, but failed.
"Oh, Hannah, I've got such a lot to say," she began, and with an
impulse took her sister's arm and of a sudden felt this gentle, gray-
haired woman might be as a mother to her when all the world, as
now she was realizing with her first confession of it, would be turned
against her. "I don't know how to begin. I know you must
understand, and I think I want you to understand, more than
anybody else. No one else will. Of course I can be sure of that."
She had succeeded, as well she knew she would, in frightening
Hannah now. She was trembling. Leaning on her arm, Mary could
feel those vibrations of fear. So unused to all but the even flow of
life, and finding herself thus suddenly in a morass of apprehension,
the poor creature's mind was floundering helplessly. One step of
speculation after another only left her the more deeply embedded in
her fears.
"Tell me what it is," she whispered--"Tell me quickly. Was it that
Mr. Liddiard?"
How surely she had sensed the one thing terrible in her life a
woman can have to tell. Never having known the first thrilling
thoughts of love, her mind had reached at once to this. Countless
little incidents during the time that Liddiard was in Bridnorth,
incidents that had attracted her notice but which she had never
observed, had come now swiftly together as the filings of iron are
drawn to a magnet's point. The times they were together, the letters
she had received, sometimes a look in Jane's face when she spoke
of him, sometimes a look in Fanny's when she was silent. One by
one but with terrible acceleration, they heaped up in her mind to the
pinnacle of vague but certain conclusion.
"Was it that Mr. Liddiard?" she repeated.
"Yes."
"I felt it was. I felt it was. Don't say you're in love with him--a
married man--Oh, Mary, that would be terrible."
"I'm not in love," said Mary.
The deep sigh that drew through Hannah's lips made her afraid
the more. How could she tell her? Every moment it was becoming
harder. Every moment the pride she felt was not so much leaving
her as being crowded into the back of her mind by these
conventional instincts, the habit of affection for her family, the
certain knowledge of their shame, the disproportionate value of their
thoughts of her.
 A few hours before she had asked herself what mattered it if
they thought the very worst, if they had no sympathy, if with their
contempt of her they turned her from the house. In any case she
was going. Never could she stay there. Never could this child of hers
breathe first the stifling air that she had breathed so long.
Yet now when her moment of confession was upon her, pride
seemed a little thing to help her through. The piteous fear in Hannah
weakened it to water in her blood. She felt sorry for her sister who
had done nothing to deserve the shame she was sure to feel.
Conscious of that sorrow, she almost was ashamed of herself.
Nothing was there as yet to whip her pride to life again. With mighty
efforts of thought, she tried to revive it, but it lay still in her heart.
This fear of Hannah's, her deep relief when the worst she could
think of proved untrue, kept it low. With all the strength she had,
Mary could not resuscitate her pride.
"What is it then?" Hannah continued less tremulously--"What is
it if you're not in love? Was he a brute? Did he make love to you?"
With all the knowledge she had gained, Mary now found herself
amazed at this simplicity of mind which once quite well she knew
had been her own. For an instant it gave her courage. For an instant
it set up this new antagonism she had found against the laws that
kept her sex in the bondage of servitude to the needs of man. So in
that instant and with that courage, she spoke it out, abruptly,
sharply as she had known she must. The swift, the sudden blow, it
made the cleanest wound.
"I'm going to have a child, Hannah," she said, and in a moment
that garden seemed full of a surging joy to her that now they knew;
and in a moment that garden seemed to Hannah a place all horrible
with evil growing things that twined about her heart and brought
their heavy, nauseating perfume, pungent and overbearing to her
nostrils.
She dropped Mary's arm that held her own. With lips already
trembling to the inevitable tears, she stood still on the path between
those rows of double pinks, now bearing up an evil, heavy scent to
her, as she stared before her.
It could not be true! How could it be true? She fought with that,
the refusal to believe its truth.
"He was only here a fortnight," she muttered oddly. "You didn't
know him. You'd never met him before. You only played golf with
him, or you walked on the cliffs. You didn't know him. How can you
expect me to believe it happened--in a fortnight? Mother was
engaged to father for two years. I--I wasn't born till fourteen months
after they'd been married!"
She laughed--a thin crackle of laughter.
"You're a fool, Mary. You don't know what you're talking about.
He was only here a fortnight."
"It's quite true, Hannah," said Mary quietly. "I'm going to have a
child."
Her heart was beating evenly now. They knew. Pride was
returning with warming blood through her veins. Less and less she
felt the chill of fear.
Swiftly Hannah turned upon her.
"But you said you weren't in love!" she exclaimed.
How quickly she was learning! Already love might have
explained, excused, extenuated.
 "I'm not in love," said Mary--"I know now I'm not in love. I was
at the time. At least I know what love is. The thing you love doesn't
destroy love when it goes. Once you love, you can't stop loving. The
object may alter. Your love doesn't. If there's no object then your
love just goes on eating your heart away. But it's there."
"Oh, my God!" cried Hannah--"Where did you learn all this--you!
Mary! The youngest of all of us! Whom do you love then if you don't
love him? Oh, it's horrible! Is your heart eating itself away?"
"No."
"Then what? What is it? I don't understand! How could I
understand? I am an old woman now. Somehow you seem to make
me know I'm an old woman. What is it? What do you love?"
"I told you I'm going to have a child," whispered Mary--"Isn't
that something to love? It's here with us as I'm talking now. There
are three of us, Hannah, not two. Isn't that something to love?"
For a long moment, Hannah gazed at her, then, suddenly
clasping her hands about her face she turned and with swift steps
ran, almost, down the path and disappeared into the house. It was
as she watched her going, that Mary had a flash of knowledge how
deep the wound had gone.

VI

Now this much was accomplished in the schedule of her mind. They
would all know. She left it to Hannah to tell them. The next day after
this confession to her sister, she went to Yarningdale Farm, having
made all arrangements to stay there two or three days and complete
her plans for the future.
It had been a difficult moment to tell Hannah. She had not quite
realized beforehand how difficult it would be. Pride she had
calculated would have helped her from the first; pride of the very
purposes of life that had passed her sisters by. But pride had not
been so ready to her thoughts when the actual moment of contact
had come. The habitual instincts of convention had intervened.
Pride, when it had come to her aid, had not been pride of herself. It
was proud she was of her sex when in the abruptness of that instant
she had flung her confession before Hannah.
There would be no question of pride; no support could it give
her when she came to tell Mrs. Peverell. To that simple farmer's wife
it could only seem that here was one, pursued by the error of her
ways, seeking sanctuary and hiding her shame in the remotest
corner she could find.
Giving no reason to Jane or Fanny, but only to Hannah for her
sudden departure, she went the next day into Warwickshire.
"You can tell them when I'm away," she said to Hannah. "It's no
good thinking you needn't tell them. Hiding it won't conceal. They
must know."
With an impulsive gesture she laid her hands on Hannah's
shoulders and looked into those eyes that indeed, as she had said,
even in those few short hours of knowledge, had grown conscious
that she was old.
"I don't know how much you hate me for bringing all this
trouble on you. It shan't be much trouble, I promise you. No one
need know why I've gone away. But I sort of feel sure of this,
Hannah, you don't hate me for the thing itself--not so much as you
might have thought you would have done."
Hannah tried to meet the gaze of Mary's eyes. Her own held
fast a moment, then faltered and fell. Something in Mary's glance
seemed to have tracked down something in her. The one with her
child had glimpsed into the heart of her who had none. It had been
like a shaft of light, slanting into a cellar, some chamber
underground that for long had been locked, the bolts on whose door
were rusty and past all use, the floor of which was no longer paved
for feet to walk upon.
For so many years untenanted had that underground chamber
been that, as has been said, Hannah had forgotten its existence.
Content had come to her with the house of life she lived in and now
by the illumination of this ray of light, shooting through cellar
windows, lighting up the very foundations of the structure of her
being, she had been made aware, when it was all too late, of the
solid and real substance upon which Nature had built the wasted
thing she had become.
"Don't!" she muttered. "Don't--don't!" and almost in shame it
might have been she hung her head as though it were Mary who
might accuse, as though Mary it were who rose in judgment above
her then.

* * * * *

Mr. Peverell in a spring cart from the nearest station brought Mary to
Yarningdale Farm. She had no need to touch Henley-in-Arden. There
was no likelihood that whilst there she would ever come across her
friends. They had walked many miles that day. It was the highest
improbability they would ever walk that way again; and certainly not
to visit the farm.
"It happen be a quiet day," he said as he gathered up the reins,
"or I couldn't have come for 'ee with the spring cart. No--I couldn't
have come for 'ee with the spring cart if it didn't happen to be a
quiet day. I got the machine ready last night and we be cuttin' hay
to-morrow."
Cutting hay!
"May I help?" she asked with an impulsive eagerness. He looked
down at her on the lower seat beside him and his eyes were
twinkling with a kindly amusement.
"'Ee can help," said he, "but hay-makin' ain't 'helpin'--it's work.
When they cut the grass over at Stapeley--Lord Orford's place there
over--there's some of the ladies puts on them dimity-like sunbonnets
and come and help. But then you see there's plenty to do the work."
His eyes twinkled again. "We've only got hundred and thirteen acres
and there's me and the carter and a boy. My missis comes out. So
does the carter's wife. But 'tain't helpin'. 'Tis work. We can't 'ford
amusements like helpin' each other. We have to work--if you
understand what I mean."
"But I mean that too," she said quickly. "I meant to work. Of
course I don't know anything about it; but couldn't I really do
something?"
"We'll be beginning half-past five to-morrow morning," he said
and she felt he was chuckling in his heart. She felt that all who did
not know the land as he knew it were mere children to him.
"Can't I get up at half-past five?" she asked.
"Can 'ee?"
 "Of course I can. I want to work. Do you know that's one of the
things I want to come here for. When I come and stay--that's what
I've come to arrange with Mrs. Peverell--when I come and stay, I
want to work. I can do what I'm told."
"There's few as can," said he. "Them things we're told to do,
get mighty slow in doin'. Could 'ee drive a horse rake?"
"I can drive a horse."
He whipped up the old mare and said no more until she asked
him why they had not cut the grass that day. It was so fine, she
said, and fine weather she thought was what they wanted first of all.
"There be plenty of fine days when the grass is green," said he.
"'Twill be fine now a few days, time we'd be gettin' it in. We'd a
shower yesterday--a nice drop of rain it was. Sun to-day and they
trefolium'll have their seed just right and nigh to droppin'. 'Ee want
the seed ripe in the stack. 'Tain't no good leavin' it in the bottom of
the wagon."
She let him talk on. She did not know what trefolium was. He
needed a listener, no more. Questions would not have pleased his
ear. All the way back he talked about the land and as to one who
understood every word he said. There was his heart and there he
spoke it as a lover might who needed no more than a listener to
hear the charms of his mistress. The mere sound of his voice, the
ring it had of vital energy, these were enough to make that talking a
thrilling song to her. It echoed to something in her. She did not know
what it was. Scarce a word of it did she understand; yet not a word
of it would she have lost.
This something that there was in him, was something also in
her. Indistinctly she knew it was that which she must feed and
stimulate to make her child. As little would he have understood that
as she had comprehension of his talk of crops and soil. Their
language might not be the same, but the same urging force was
there to give them speech and thought. Just as he spoke of the land
though never of himself or his part with it, so she thought of her
child, a thing that needed soil to grow in. No haphazard chance of
circumstance did she feel it to be. Tilling must she do and cleansing
of the earth, before her harvest could be reaped. Her night would
come, that night before, that night when all was ready, that night
after rain and sun when the seed was ripe and must be gathered in
the stack and none be wasted on the wagon floor.
"'Ee understand what I'm sayin'," she suddenly heard him
interpose between the level of her thoughts.
"Yes, yes--I understand," said she. "And you don't know how
interesting it is."
He turned the mare into the farm gate and tossed the reins on
to her back.
"She's a knowsome girl," he said that night as he lay beside his
wife. "She's a knowsome girl. 'Twon't rain to-morrow. There was no
rain in they clouds."

VII

The next evening it was, after the first day in the hayfield and while
Mr. Peverell in the big barn was sharpening the knives of the mowing
machine, that Mary set herself to the task of telling his wife why she
wanted to come to the farm.
Hard as she knew it would be, so much the harder it became
when alone she found herself watching that sallow face with its
sunken and lusterless eyes, the thin, unforgiving line of lip, the chin
set square, obediently to turn the other cheek to the smiting hand of
Fate.
Mrs. Peverell was knitting.
"A woolly vest," said she--"for the old man, come next winter.
Time they leaves be off the apple trees, the wind ain't long afindin'
we'd be here top of the hill."
For a while Mary sat in silence counting her stitches--two purl,
two plain, two purl, two plain. The needles clicked. The knotted
knuckles turned and twisted, catching the light with rhythmic
precision. And all the time she kept saying to herself--"Soon he'll
come back from the barn and I shan't have said it. Soon he'll come
back."
"Did you make all your children's things for them?" she asked
with sudden inspiration, striking the note to key her thoughts when
she could speak them.
The needles clicked on. The knotted knuckles twisted and
turned as though she had never heard. The head was bent, the eyes
fastened upon her stitches.
Thinking she had not heard, Mary was about to repeat her
question when suddenly she looked. Stone her eyes were, even and
gray. Through years, each one of which was notched upon her
memory, she looked at Mary across the dim light of their parlor
kitchen.
 "I had no children," she said hardly; "all the stitches I've ever
gathered was for my man."
Her gaze upon Mary continued for a long silence then, as
though her needles had called them, her eyes withdrew to her
knitting. Saying no more, she continued her occupation.
To Mary could she have said less? There was the gap filled in
between that winsome creature whose portrait hung upon the wall
in the other room and this woman, sour of countenance, whose
blood had turned to vinegar in her heart.
Many another woman would have been still more afraid,
possessed of such knowledge as that. With a heart that swelled in
her to pity, Mary found her fear had gone.
Somewhere in that forbidding exterior, she knew she could find
the response of heart she needed. Even Nature, with her crudest
whip, could not drive out the deeper kindliness of the soul. It was
only the body she could dry up and wither, with the persisting
ferment of discontent; only the external woman she could embitter
with her disregard.
For here was one whom circumstance had offered and Nature
had flung aside. Great as the tragedy of her sisters' lives might be,
Mary knew how much greater a tragedy was this. Here there was no
remedy, no fear of convention to make excuse, no want of courage
to justify. Like a leper she was outcast amongst women. The
knowledge of it was all in her face. And such tragedy as this, though
it might wither the body and turn sour the heart, could only make
the soul great that suffered it.
Mary's fear was gone. At sight of the unforgiving line of lip and
square set chin to meet adversity, she knew a great soul was hidden
behind that sallow mask.
The long silence that had followed Mrs. Peverell's admission
added a fullness of meaning to Mary's words.
"It'd sound foolish and empty if I said I was sorry," she said
quietly, "but I know what you must feel."
The lusterless eyes shot up quickly from their hollows. Almost a
light was kindling in them now.
"'Ee bain't a married girl," she said, "Miss Throgmorton or what
'ee call it, that's how I wrote my letter to 'ee."
"Yes."
"How could 'ee know things I'd feel?
"I do."
"How old are 'ee?"
"Thirty next September."
"Why haven't 'ee married?"
"I haven't been asked. Look at me."
"I am."
"But look at me well."
Mrs. Peverell stared into her eyes.
"I have three sisters older than me," Mary went on. "Four girls--
four women. We're none of us married. None of us was ever as
pretty or sweet as you were when that photograph was taken of you
in the other room."
The silence that fell between them then as Mrs. Peverell gazed
at her was more significant than words. For all they said, once
understanding, they did not need words. Indications of speech
sufficed.
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