How to Process Coffee at Home in 7 Steps (2.5 Minute Version)

Processing coffee at home isn’t as tough as you might think. It takes some time, sure, but it also makes for GREAT coffee!

After doing some really long coffee processing videos, let’s break it down into seven steps without the extra jokes, raps, failures and witty dialog between a sexy couple.

Step 1: Pick some ripe coffee cherries! Our trees need pruning for easier harvest but we still managed to pick close to a gallon of cherries in about 20 minutes.

Step 2: Once you’ve picked your coffee cherries, remove the beans from the fruit. We did this the hard way – me with my teeth and Rachel with a steak knife, but there are much easier ways, such as crushing and grinding the fruit with a thick board on concrete or by soaking overnight to loosen the fruit from the bean.

Step 3: Take your beans and throw them into some water for a day or two. This will ferment away the slimy layer on the beans. When they feel rough between your fingers instead of slick, you’ve got it. Rinse them off and then proceed to step four.

Step 4: Dry the beans. If you want to store the green beans for any period of time, it’s important to dry them quite well so they don’t mold. This can take days in the sun. We didn’t bother as we were heading right to roasting. Instead, we dried the beans for a few hours, then went to step 5.

Step 5: remove the parchment layer. The parchment layer is a rough, tan layer that surrounds the beans. Peel it off.

Step 6: Roast the beans. We roasted the beans in a stainless steel pot over medium heat, stirring constantly, but there are many other ways to do this. You can bake the beans in the oven or use a popcorn popper. We don’t have a popcorn popper and we wanted to closely monitor the progress so we simply toasted ours in a pot over the burner.

Step 7: Grind the coffee

There are hand-cranked machines but we used a little electric espresso grinder instead which works like a charm.

Now you can brew your coffee however you like and enjoy some homegrown goodness, from tree to cup.

Thanks for watching – catch me on the web at http://www.TheSurvivalGardener.com and be sure to check out my $2 booklet “The Survival Gardener’s Guide to Growing Your Own Caffeine” here: http://amzn.to/2iHGZ6N

Until next time, may your thumbs always be green.