346 Coffee Culture on tbe Soutbern Coast of Cbiapas. 



sive privilege in England ; these are the Butler, Wall, Walker, and Gor- 

 don machines. The last is the only one I have seen used in Guatemala. 

 Mr. Sabonadiere prefers the first. 



b. Washing. The coffee beans, now skinned and separated, when 

 they leave the pulping machine fall into another tank full of water, in 

 which they remain twenty-four hours, in order that they may be freed 

 from a sweet mucilaginous substance of a light color which is found be- 

 tween the skin and the shell of the beans. With this object they are 

 stirred about with a wooden shovel just before being removed from the 

 tank. 



c. Separating the Good Coffee from the Bad. The perfect beans 

 possess a higher specific gravity than water and sink in it ; those which 

 float are of poor quality and constitute what is called waste coffee, or 

 coffee of the lowest grade. 



In order to facilitate the separation of the perfect from the imper- 

 fect beans, a part of the principal tank is divided off, forming a second 

 tank, smaller and lower than the first, so that the imperfect beans may 

 be carried easily into it by the water or by the hand. It is better to 

 construct the dividing wall of the two tanks of the same height as the 

 others, and provide it with a small sluice, which, when opened, will 

 establish a current that will carry the imperfect beans from the larger 

 into the smaller tank. When the beans are thus separated, the process 

 of preparing them for the market is conducted separately. 



d. Exposure to the Sun. When the beans have been pulped and 

 washed they must be thoroughly dried, and this is effected by the 

 action of the sun, which makes this process an exceedingly slow and 

 costly one. A sort of threshing-floor is constructed which is paved 

 with stone and mortar, and on this the coffee is exposed to the sun. 

 The coffee must be taken in every day at sunset, or before, if the sky 

 looks threatening, so that it may not be exposed to the rain or dew. 

 In some estates the coffee is merely heaped up in a corner of the yard 

 and covered with leaves or mats; but in such case it runs the risk of 

 being stolen ; and, besides, when the coffee is piled up there is danger 

 of its fermenting, which would injure its quality. The coffee must 

 also be constantly moved about while it is in the yard, in order that the 

 sun may have access to every part of it and not to that only which is 

 on top. 



These operations, which are very tedious when the quantity of 

 coffee to be dried is considerable, have to be continued for at least 

 fifteen days, if the weather is fine, to dry the coffee thoroughly. If it 

 is stored before it is perfectly dry, it may rot or at least become dis- 

 colored, and lose greatly both in quality and price. 



When the weather is cloudy or rainy, which often happens in 

 mountainous lands situated at three thousand or four thousand feet 



