July, 1908.] 



29 



Edible Products. 



fifty or sixty at a time, and await their 

 turn for the consignment 5 * tobe measured. 

 When the bandies are despatched from 

 the estate, the coffee, which is sometimes 

 packed in bulk and sometimes in sacks, 

 is carefully measured, but many things 

 may happen to it on route, and the last 

 cart of the string particularly is subject 

 to burglary. Its driver, often sound 

 asleep in front, sees and hears nothing 

 of the thieves lying in wait, who swoop 

 down, slit open the sacks of the end bandy 

 and transfer the coffee into their own 

 baskets and bags. As soon as the carts 

 are admitted to the yard the coffee is 

 poured out into great heaps, and measured 

 off in bushels, one bushel being always 

 weitrhed, to ascertain its weight on arri- 

 val, to compare with the weight on des- 

 patch. It is then put into sacks, labelled 

 and stored away in locked godowns,each 

 consignment being kept separate through- 

 out the whole proce-s it undergoes in the 

 works. The yard is enclosed by high 

 walls, and consists of barbacues, or 

 asphalt platfoims slightly sloped from 

 the centre and divided by low cement 

 barricades. The godowns, engine house, 

 store, sheds, etc., are all arranged in the 

 same enclosure and occupy a space of 

 about six or seven acres. 



A busy scene is enacted every morning 

 in the yard when the Manager appeals 

 at 8 a.m. ; then, as soon as the great gates 

 are open some 300 to 400 women, who 

 have been gathering outside file in. A 

 very picturesque scene they make, with 

 their glossy dark hair, fair skin and 

 spotless white clothes, as they hurry 

 off with their baskets over the black 

 asphalted barbacues to their work in the 

 garbling sheds, and, like the fall of many 

 waters, is the noise of their rapid tongues 

 as they settle themselves in their various 

 places, chattering together in the strange 

 Malay al am language. 



The men meanwhile bring the coffee 

 out in sacks and it is spread on the barba- 

 cues to dry, each lot being kept to itself 

 and designated by a white label with the 

 owner's name on, The beans are then 

 slowly turned by coolies with large wood- 

 en rakes. At this tstage the coffee is 

 not of the well-known brown colour but 

 a pale buff, and in the distance the barba- 

 cues look as if they are covered with 

 khaki cloth. The time the coffee takes 

 to dry varies. It depends a good deal on 

 the state it is in when despatched. If 

 fairly dry and the weather fine, one day 

 may be sufficient, but in a cloudy season 

 when the barbacues get damp aud are 

 not well heated by the sun two or three 

 days are often required. 



Samples of the coffee, after drying, are 

 brought up daily for the Manager to 



inspect. If it is passed dry, it is taken 

 in sacks to the Mill, aud there the peeler 

 undertakes the next process. 



The peeler is a large iron trough, in 

 which two fluted wheels with corrugated 

 edges are hung, with their weight 

 just off the trough. Charges contain- 

 ing eighteen bushels of coffee are fixed 

 above on the wooden barricade encircl- 

 ing the trough and, as required, are let 

 down. The first husk of the bean is there 

 broken up and peeled oif by the friction of 

 the two wheels which are worked round 

 and loundby a compact little engine. 

 Placed between the wheels are wooden 

 spades, fitted with iron stays and, when 

 the beans are peeled, these are dropped, 

 and in their turn rotate on a pivot and 

 force the coffee out through a little trap 

 opening into a pit beneath. The trough 

 is then cleaned out amidst clouds of 

 dust and ready for another charge. 

 From the pit tlie coffee is taken up by 

 an elevator, which looks like a, miniature 

 dredger, and carried to the Avinnow, 

 where the parchment and the silvery 

 skin is removed. The coffee bean is now 

 quite clean and ready to be sized, so 

 is shot into a long perforated zinc 

 cyliuder. The perforations in the 

 cylinder are divided into C, B and A, 

 smallest, smaller, and big, and as the 

 cylinder turns the beans drop through; 

 those that do not fall through C, pass on 

 to B, and so on. The A. B. and C's then 

 fall down, shoots into the separator, 

 where the peaberry, or round bean, is 

 divided from the flat one, a little boy 

 being in attendance on the separator 

 to prevent the holes from becoming 

 clogged. 



The beans are then collected from 

 their bins and taken out in bags to the 

 garbling sheds, where the women pick 

 them over by hand, shaking them up 

 in their basket trays as they do their 

 rice, the broken, imperfect and discard- 

 ed beans baing put into the class of 

 coffee called ' triage,' from the French 

 word triage, which means " choosing " 

 or " picking." In the sheds which are 

 hung with tatties to keep the sun from 

 bleaching the coffee, the women work 

 in little pens, divided from each other 

 by low sceens : by this means each lot 

 of coffee is still kept separate from that 

 of any other estate. When the garbling 

 is over, the last process is finished and 

 the coffee is ready to be weighed, for 

 when once the parchment is removed 

 coffee is reckoned by weight only and 

 not by measure. 



The coffee is now ready to be despatch- 

 ed. The A's, B's, C's, and peaberry beans 

 each being packed separately, tor each, 



