THE BRAZILIAN COFFEE COUNTRY 
‘camera 
919 
Photo by Robert DeC. Ward 
BASINS FOR MACERATION OF COFFEE BEFORE PULPING 
tipe berries which have fallen to the 
bottom of the first (7. e., washing) basin 
are there very thoroughly raked and 
shoveled, the water having been lowered 
so that the men can stand among the 
berries at the bottom of the basin. ‘The 
sand is generally carried off with the 
water through iron gratings at the bot- 
tom, or is collected at the upper end, 
until finally the clean, ripe berries are 
ready to pass out, down a narrow canal, 
with a stream of clean water. 
For the ripe berries, the maceration 
basins are simply used for the purpose 
of temporary storage on the way between 
the washing basins and the pulper. To 
the top of the pulper the berries are car- 
ried again by a stream of water whose 
velocity is carefully but easily adjusted 
by a system of gates. “The berries are 
dropped through the funnel-shaped top 
of the pulper directly into the machine. 
Pulpers are made of different patterns, 
and are run by water, steam, or horse- 
power; but the general principle is the 
same in all of them. In one of the most 
widely used forms there is a revolving 
copper cylinder, whose surface 1s set with 
small knobs, or nipples, and is covered 
on one side by a surface of wood, or 
metal, or rubber, against which the cylin- 
der impinges as it revolves. The coffee 
berries carried to the pulper by the 
stream of water are crushed between 
these two surfaces, whose distance apart 
can be varied to suit the particular size 
and condition of the berries at that time 
being pulped, and the pulp is thus macer- 
ated and loosened. The object is to ac- 
complish this without injuring the two 
inner coverings of the seeds. 
THE REDUCTION MACHINERY 
The pulper reduces the coffee berries 
to a wet “mush,” consisting of much 
water, coffee beans, and loose pulp. Most 
of the pulp adheres to the teeth of the 
cylinder and is dropped off at the bottom 
of the revolution, while the coffee beans, 
many of them still incompletely pulped 
and all having more or less pulp adher- 
ing to them, are carried, always by water, 
into a large copper cylinder revolving on 
an axis slightly inclined from the hort- 
zontal and pierced with small elongated 
holes, just large enough to let the pulped 
