"Hulling and peeling" consists in the removal, generally by milling, of both the "parchment" and the "silver-skin." The bean after this process is at first very light-colored, but it soon changes to a sort of fern-green or greenish-yellow hue, and this color it retains for a considerable time if kept under proper conditions and away from dampness. With greater age the tint becomes, as already noted, a pale yellow. except East Indian types, which change in some cases to a dark brown as the result of storage methods and shipment in slow wooden sailing vessels.
As the beans emerge from the huller, they come first under the influence of a fan, which separates and removes the detached skins, and then go to the "separator" —an inclined revolving cylindrical sieve, divided into different meshes. Sand and dust drop through the first section, small and broken beans into the next and so on, the best and largest beans being retained.
In the most up-to-date plantations, separators of the eccentric or vibrator type have been installed in place of the revolving sieves, as they make possible a more accu rate separation by sizes of the ordinary or "flat" beans, in addition to separating the peaberries for shipment as such.
The separation is followed by a careful sorting over by hand of the better grades to pick out any discolored or otherwise undesirable beans.
As soon as the sizing and grading are finished, the coffee is packed in bags or casks and is ready for market.
The methods outlined are employed only on modern plantations equipped with im proved appliances, but the same principles are followed by all firms or individuals using the "washing process" on any scale. By the "dry" method, "milling" is used entirely in place of the fresh pulping and washing.
The value of the coffee marketed by the producer depends to a large extent on the care and judgment exercised in bringing it through the various processes—and the same care must be continued in the transportation of the bags to the port of shipment and in storing them in the ships which carry them to the consuming countries.
The transportation of coffee is also an important item in its cost. Its journey from the plantation to some central point is often by human portage through mountain dis tricts and then by slow, tedious, bullock travel for long distances to the coast—with all the risk of deterioration en route.
Coffee Consumed in the United States.
The following table of the imports of coffee into the United States during the twelve months ending June 30, 1909, gives a fairly accurate idea of the relative im portance of the sources of our supply. The total figures vary considerably from year to year, generally averaging less than those shown. The calendar year 1910 showed a total of only 804,417,451 pounds.
. It will be noted that Brazil supplied nearly 78% of all the coffee imported, and that other parts of South and Central America and Mexico furnished more than 18% leaving less than 4% to the credit of all the remainder of the world. In other words, we received during the year 1,010,575,651 pounds from South America, Central America and Mexico as against only a little more than 39,000,000 pounds from all other countries. The coffee classifications best known to the general public are "Mocha," "Java," "Rio," "Santos," "Maracaibo," "Bourbon Santos." "Bogota" and "Pea berry." The cheapest varieties of general consumption are the low grade Bios, and the dearest, the high grade "Javas," or East Indian, and Mocha.
There was formerly a great deal of deception and misunderstanding, much of it entirely unnecessary, in the buying and selling of coffee—not only by mixing in low grade, imperfect and otherwise undesirable beans for the sake of greater profit, for similar practices are found in greater or less degree in every line—but also in the marketing of good products under titles to which they have no right. The misuse of geographical names was for many years- so widespread that they lost practically all their real significance to the general public—almost any small coffee bean was passed as "Mocha" and any larger uniform bean for "Java." That this was done is convinc ingly proved when we note that only a trifle more than one pound in every hundred received during the year came from Java or the vicinity of Java, and that all the coffee from the Mocha port of shipment amounted to only about one pound in every five hundred—yet every grocery store in the country sold enormous quantities of "Java and Mocha." The practice of substitution extended also to every variety and every grade of every variety.